
Class. 

Book 

GopyrigM?_ 



A • . 



CDFtfRIGHT DEPOSm 



This book will be mailed, postpaid, on receipt of $1.75. 

Editors, to whom a complimentary copy is sent, would 
confer a favor by sending me any notice or review of it 
which they may publish. 



Address: 

Dr. C. A. Ingraham, 

CAMBRIDGE, N. Y. 



WASHINGTON IRVING, 
AND OTHER ESSAYS, 



BIOGRAPHICAL, 
HISTORICAL and 
PHILOSOPHICAL 



By 

Charles Anson Ingraham 

AUTHOR OF 

Songs of All Sorts; Steps Up Life's 
Ladder; Fact, Fiction and Reflection; 
Route, Rhyme and Remedy, Etc., Etc. 



Facts are the mere dross of history. 
It is from the abstract truth which 
interpenetrates them, and lies latent 
among them like gold in the ore, that 
the mass derives its whole value. 
Our historians neglect the art of 
narration, the art of interesting the 
affections and presenting pictures to 
the imagination. That a writer may 
produce these effects without violat- 
ing truth is sufficiently proved by 
many excellent biographical works. 

— Essay on History, by Lord Macaulay. 



Cambridge, New York 
1922 



Copyright, 1022, 

BY 

Charles A. Ingraham 



JUN -8 1922 



©CI.A674509 



PREFACE 



The idea which the author has kept in view 
while preparing these essays has been to avoid a 
strictly chronological and concrete account of 
any of the subjects dealt with, and to incorporate 
rather the distinguishing traits of character and 
striking, dramatic events or situations, the pur- 
pose being to render the articles really illumina- 
tive and humanly interesting. He would, there- 
fore, indulge the hope that his own personality, 
such as it is, has been in some measure com- 
municated to the book, not only in the general 
manner of its being perhaps somewhat evident in 
the choice of subjects and the method and style 
of their presentation, but in the ideas and senti- 
ments of the writer as they run in practically an 
unbroken line from the beginning to the end of 
the volume. 

The preparation of this book has involved a 
large amount of reading and thought, and it can 
be truly said that were all the volumes and 
periodicals brought together which have been 
consulted, they would constitute a considerable 
library; of all this literature, these essays are 

[3] 



Preface 

the essence. It has frequently occurred to the 
author as he has been engaged in essay writing, 
that brief though comprehensive papers of this 
kind have a wider perusal in this day of pressing 
activities, than books devoted wholly to one sub- 
ject. Though an essay lacks the outward dignity 
of a book treating of but a single topic, there are 
grounds for the conviction that the former is a 
greater source of influence. And here it may be 
said that in the great uncultivated fields of 
information which exist concerning every sub- 
ject under the sun, there is a fertile territory for 
writers profitably to till, and in which to bring 
forth things new and old with which the reading 
public are quite unacquainted. 

The author appreciates the courtesy of the 
publishers of The Journal of American History, 
and of Americana, in permitting him to reprint 
in this collection the essays which first appeared 
in these magazines. Acknowledgment is also 
made to The Christian Statesman, and The Pitts- 
burgh Christian Advocate, in which periodicals 
a part of these papers have been originally 
printed. Obligations are expressed to the pub- 
lishers of The Etude for the privilege of repro- 
ducing the author's article on Stephen C. Foster, 

[4] 



Preface 

which appeared in the September, 1916, issue of 
that magazine. Citation is made of this serial 
number for the reason that it was a Foster 
souvenir edition, containing several articles and 
many illustrations dealing with the life of that 
distinguished song writer. 

Grateful acknowledgment is due Mr. George 
G. Champlin, of the reference department of the 
New York State Library, and to others associated 
with him, for the uniformly courteous and help- 
ful service which they have rendered the author 
in his studies relating to these essays. 

C. A. I. 

Cambridge, N. Y., February, 1922. 



[5] 



CONTENTS 



WASHINGTON IRVING 

I PAGE 

Preservative Elements in the Writings of 

Washington Irving 9 

II 
Personal Characteristics of Washington 

Irving 25 

James Fenimore Cooper 53 

William Ellery Channing 75 

Honest Jenny Lind 90 

Stephen C. Foster 119 

The Prime Family 130 

Columbus, " The Pauper Pilot ". . . . 157 
The Northwest Territory and the 

Ordinance of 1787 165 

Transcendentalism 185 

Telepathy, or Thought-Transference 210 

Just Ordinary People 226 

The Classics of Agriculture 232 

American Magazines, Past and 

Present 240 

The Burden of Liberty 260 

The Ultimate Aim of History 265 

[7] 



WASHINGTON IRVING 

I 

Preservative Elements in the Writings of 
Washington Irving 



Though Washington Irving has the distinction 
of having been the first literary genius which 
this country produced and the first American 
author to win recognition in Europe, it cannot be 
claimed for him that in any of the fields of litera- 
ture which he cultivated he was an imposing 
writer. Among his works can be found no pro- 
fundity of thought, no philosophical illumination, 
no deep insight into the hidden springs of charac- 
ter, no original inventiveness, no rare and 
exquisite delineation of sentiment; and whether 
he addresses himself to history, biography, travel, 
fiction or essay, there is ever an absence of virile, 
forceful elements which either he did not enter- 
tain, or else studiously avoided expressing. 
Throughout his books it is easy to imagine him 
as a kindly, tolerant, broadminded gentleman of 
leisure, standing idly by the highway of human 

[9] 



Washington Irving 



life and benignantly smiling as the struggling, 
disputatious crowds throng on their journey; for 
he was of a retrospective mind, caring not in a 
literary sense for the great issues of his day and 
preferring to dwell in the dreamy shades of 
bygone generations. In the preface to Brace- 
bridge Hall he says appropriately that his " only 
aim is to paint characters and manners " and 
that he " always had an opinion that much good 
might be done by keeping mankind in good- 
humor with one another. " 

Yet Washington Irving is universally admitted 
to be an author of very high merit as well as 
distinction, having an appeal both to the dis- 
criminating reader and to the masses, to the 
young and to the old, and to the diverse popula- 
tions of Europe and America. His books have 
yet a large sale and are found in all well equipped 
libraries; they have a perennial vitality which 
retains its charm, like that of the Hudson 
and the pleasant banks of Sunnyside. Reflec- 
tions of this kind have led me to the considera- 
tion of Irving with a view of determining the 
secret of his lasting popularity; of learning, if 
possible, by what inherent qualities his books 
maintain themselves while works of greater 

[10] 



Washington Irving 



intellectual merit have lapsed wholly or in part 
into oblivion. 

One of the most prominent of Irving's charac- 
teristics was his unmethodical habits. He was 
incapacitated by nature for remaining faithful to 
any prescribed employment that demanded set 
hours and particular duties, several prominent 
and lucrative offices having been offered him and 
declined at times when he was in need of an 
assured income, for the reason that he knew 
himself to be incompetent to render a satisfactory 
routine service. His education, so far as schools 
were concerned, ended in his sixteenth year, and 
even during this limited space he was not a 
diligent student, during the day smuggling books 
of travel and adventure into the school and read- 
ing them secretly there, and at night stealing 
from the house to attend the theatre. In after 
years he regretted that he had not been given 
an education in Columbia College, a privilege 
which some of his brothers had enjoyed, but it 
is unlikely that he would have held himself to the 
plodding study necessary for tlie completion of 
the course, and that he would soon have reverted 
to his favorite diversions of strolling about the 
city, visiting the docks and observing the foreign 

[ii] 



Washington Irving 



ships, sailors and cargoes; sitting with a com- 
panionable old inn-keeper in the suburbs and 
reading to him his travel books, or wandering 
with gun or fishing-rod along the shores of the 
Hudson. During a large part of his life he was 
traveling from place to place and from country 
to country almost aimlessly and taking up the 
subjects of his work as they might by chance 
present themselves to him ; writing with rapidity 
and enthusiasm for a period and then remain- 
ing in idleness and dejection from the exhaustion 
caused by the strenuous effort put forth, as with 
Bracebridge Hall and the Life of Goldsmith, the 
latter having been completed in the brief space of 
three months. This desultory disposition and 
lack of method, however, was in the case of 
Irving an element of advantage in that it gave 
to his work an atmosphere of spontaneity, a fresh 
and animated character which no task-work com- 
position could command. And while a few of 
his books entailed study and investigation, 
notably the Life of Washington, it can be safely 
said that those portions of his writings which 
have the securest hold upon the people are those 
works which were prepared with felicity, ease 
and freedom. I am reminded of the author's 

[12] 



Washington Irving 



estimation of the word " work " as here employed 
and quote from the preface to Tales of a 
Traveler: "The writing of a book was con- 
sidered in old times as an enterprise of toil and 
difficulty, in so much that the most trifling 
lucubration was denominated a ' work ' and the 
world talked with awe and reverence of ' the 
labors of the learned/ These matters are better 
understood now-a-days." 

The form in which Irving clothed his ideas is 
fashioned after the conviction which he enter- 
tained, that the production of literature is not 
work, but rather diversion, the essential ingredi- 
ent of all true art, and accordingly his words and 
phrases amble along with an easy, undesigned 
and liquid movement which demands from the 
reader the least possible attention, constituting it 
one of the most agreeable, lucid and graceful 
styles in the language. It is not so polished, 
perhaps, as Addison's but more amiable, familiar 
and natural, and devoid of any hint of crafts- 
manship as his periods glide easily and beautifully 
along. It has been well said that behind Irving's 
work there is a man, a sententious remark that 
may be as well applied to his style as to his sub- 
ject-matter; both reflect and are a commentary 

[13] 



Washington Irving 



on the author. That a man should acquire so 
distinguished a diction with practically no aid 
from schools, and but little from books, will ever 
remain one of the wonders of literature. All 
that can be said of it is that, like Irving himself, 
it is unmethodical and has in it the mystic charm 
of his own liberal, benevolent and artistic per- 
sonality. 

In the literary as well as the religious life, 
the higher planes of excellence are only to be 
attained through having dwelt in the crucible of 
affliction, and Irving's works are an illustration 
of this truth. Matilda Hoffman at the age of 
seventeen carried with her into the grave the 
heart of Washington Irving; Ke was ever after 
a changed man. At this time he was writing the 
latter portion of the History of New York and 
was of the age of twenty-six years ; but though so 
young and of a happy disposition, a lover of and 
a favorite in society, in which after the poignancy 
of his grief had been somewhat allayed he again 
mingled, he was never after led captive by the 
charms of women and he died a bachelor. His 
heart henceforth, he said, "would not hold." The 
story of his affliction as related by him in a manu- 
script of sixteen pages and addressed to an 

[14] 



Washington Irving 



English married lady sojourning in Dresden is 
one of the most pathetic and beautiful outpour- 
ings of pent-up grief that has ever been indited. 
Irving, who had just completed Bracebridge Hall 
and had visited Dresden to recuperate his health, 
which from early life and throughout his career 
was subject to lapses, came to enjoy cordial rela- 
tions with the lady referred to, Mrs. Foster, and 
with her two unmarried daughters. Having 
been rallied upon his bachelorhood, he wrote for 
Mrs. Foster this touching account of Matilda 
Hoffman and of his anguish at losing her, a 
revelation which, so far as known, was never 
divulged to any other person. In it he says : " I 
was the last one she looked upon. I have told 
you as briefly as I could what if I were to tell with 
all the incidents and feelings that accompanied 
it, would fill volumes. * * * I went into the 
country, but could not bear solitude, yet could not 
enjoy society. There was a dismal horror con- 
tinually in my mind, that made me fear to be 
alone. I had often to get up in the nigfit and 
seek the bed-room of my brother, as if the having 
of a human being by me would relieve me from 
the frightful gloom of my own thoughts. * * * 

2 [15] 



Washington Irving 



It threw some clouds into my disposition which 
have ever since hung about it." 

His devotion to this early love was wonderful. 
Wherever he went he carried Matilda Hoffman's 
Bible, and it lay on the table near his bed in the 
chamber where he died. Mr. G. P. Putnam, his 
publisher, in his reminiscences of Irving, relates 
that at the author's request he had "a miniature 
of a young lady, intellectual, refined and beauti- 
ful," repaired and recased, and describes the 
emotion he exhibited when it was returned,, 
though forty years had passed since Matilda 
Hoffman died. Throughout the writings of 
Irving, excepting his early works, broods the 
tender, chastened, refined memory of this maiden 
who more than she could ever have dreamt 
became a potent and lasting influence in American 
letters. It was with a heavy heart that the young 
author composed the closing chapters of the 
History of New York. He said that he could 
never again look with interest upon it, owing to 
the sad experience of the days in which it was 
prepared — and one imagines that he can detect 
in this portion of the book a moderation of the 
free wit, humor and burlesque which cKarac- 
terizes the part previously written. It has been 

[16] 



Washington Irving 



noted by observing readers that the gentle and 
pathetic spirit which seems henceforth to brood 
over Irving's writings is intensified in certain 
places and rendered almost certainly reminiscent 
of this affliction. The Broken Heart " might 
be cited, of which Byron said: " That is one of 
the finest things ever written on earth. Irving is 
a genius; and he has something better than 
genius, — a heart. He never wrote that without 
weeping; nor can I hear it without tears." In the 
sketch, "Annesley Hall/' belonging to the New- 
stead Abbey collection, is the following sentiment, 
referring to Byron's attachment to Mary Cha- 
worth: " These early loves, like the first run of 
the uncrushed grape, are the sweetest and strong- 
est gushings of the heart, and however they may 
be superseded by other attachments in after 
years, the memory will continually recur to them, 
and fondly dwell upon their recollections." Other 
similar references may be found in " The Wife " 
and " Rural Funerals," of the Sketch Book, and 
in " St. Mark's Eve," of Bracebridge Hall. The 
story of Irving's disappointment in love aids in 
establishing the truth of the saying that only a 
great soul can experience a great grief. With 
him, the flowering, fragrant growth of amatory 

[17] 



Washington Irving 



impulse was so thoroughly torn, root and branch, 
from his sensitive heart, that no second growth 
was ever able to find nourishment for itself, and 
died away. Nothing in the life of Irving has so 
impressed me as the depth of his affection, the 
steadfastness of his sterling integrity and the 
nobleness of his nature as exhibited in the story 
of his love for Matilda Hoffman. 

The absence of any controversial element in 
the writings of Irving also conduces to their per- 
petuity, though his avoidance of such matter was 
not deliberate, but rather the result of an 
inherent repugnance to anything savoring of con- 
tention. Politics, with which in his younger 
years he had some small experience, he was 
unable to refer to except with impatience, and it 
is a singular fact that while he was ever in the 
midst of swirling disputations concerning public 
issues, no one would ever gather from the 
gentle repose and refined aloofness of his chap- 
ters that he dwelt in other than halcyon days. 
Irving introduced real literature into America, 
avoided the dialectic qualities which had charac- 
terized it, and gave to it a wider and more per- 
manent appeal. Essential to progress as aggres- 
sive debate has undeniably shown itself, polem- 



r is] 



Washington Irving 



ieal works do not constitute genuine literature, 
and save a few lasting exceptions, they perish 
from memory with the issues which gave them 
birth; but the writings of Irving, finding a 
response in the sympathies and sentiments of both 
sexes and all ages, irrespective of the generations 
in which they may dwell, live on and are enjoyed 
for the reason that their appeal is not circum- 
scribed by times, places and conditions, but 
extends to the universal and unchanging heart 
of humanity. A writer who accomplishes such a 
triumph is far from the colorless character and 
neutral influence which Irving has been con- 
sidered by many to have been, and it is a ques- 
tion whether, as profound and lasting monitors, 
his works have not been as potential as those of 
Channing, Bushnell, Hamilton or Webster; 
whether with his kindly humor, gentle pathos, 
and transparent goodness and good-will, ever 
ameliorating and fructifying the hearts of men, 
he has not been as beneficial an agency. No 
apologies are needed for Irving; he gave the 
world what he had : the reflection of his noble and 
sincere nature, his well-disposed and affectionate 
disposition and an ability to promote innocent 
mirth, to encourage good-fellowship and to 



Washington Irving 



alleviate the asperities and sorrows of life. That 
he had not argumentative or combative propensi- 
ties is not to be deplored, for with these he 
would not have been Washington Irving, and 
mankind would have lost his winning personality 
and his unique and delightful writings. 

Another quality of I;rving that lends a 
perennial character to his work is that of senti- 
ment, deep and diversified, penetrating all his 
intellectual faculties and exhibiting itself on 
almost every page of his books. It was, more- 
over, a manly sensibility, never fulsome or 
flagrant, never paraded, but emanating spon- 
taneously at opportune moments from a person- 
ality that was at once dignified and sensitive. 
Though he wrote no poetry, he was of a poetic 
nature, draping the common-place localities of 
the Hudson with the beautiful fabrics of his 
imagination, picturing ordinary episodes and 
persons with an immortal enchantment, resur- 
recting from their ancient graves forgotten 
happenings, and with the witching art of his pen 
arraying them forever in the habiliments of 
fame. In a limited sense Irving was an inspired 
man. His genius cannot be traced to any ade- 
quate source, his parents having been excellent 

[20] 



Washington Irving 



Scotch people, not particularly gifted, who set- 
tled in New York City. His father, William 
Irving, was an exemplary man, a strict adherent 
of the Presbyterian church; his mother, Sarah 
Sanders, was a beautiful and amiable woman. 
A defective schooling completed, as stated 
before, when under sixteen years of age; the 
remembrance from the age of five of Wash- 
ington's hand laid upon his head and his words 
of blessing upon his namesake — which he 
acknowledged in his last and greatest work, his 
Life of Washington, — these are all the visible 
sources from which his distinction was derived. 
But the most characteristic quality of Irving's 
genius and which serves more, perhaps, than the 
others cited to maintain his popularity, was that 
of his humanistic tendencies. Above everything 
else, not excepting religion, regarding which he 
was a devout disciple, it was men, women and 
children that absorbed his interest. His his- 
tories, biographies, sketches and stories 'have 
pre-eminent always the fortunes of human life; 
there are few abstractions, no theories, no 
philosophizing, but it is the minds and doings of 
men that are ever kept familiar before the 
reader; their adventures, humors, romances and 

[21] 



Washington Irving 



oddities are delineated with a masterly pen, while 
ethical and noble traits of character find in him 
an appreciative observer and one who rejoices to 
do them honor. But tragedy he instinctively 
shunned; and whatever was vile or horrible, 
fields in which distinguished writers have found 
materials, he avoided, to dwell upon the attrac- 
tive phases of human existence. Though he can- 
not, therefore, be ranked as an author of uni- 
versal discernment to set forth adequately every 
passion and experience, he offends no one and 
gains the more readers through his disposition 
to consider the milder phases of human experi- 
ence. Nothing interested him so much as the 
study of individuals, in hope of finding some 
peculiarity, phase of virtue, whim or humor, so 
that he might delight himself in setting forth the 
result of his observations from life in a classic 
sketch or story. It was this fond devotion to our 
common humanity that not only made Irving 
great, but communicated to his readers a 
humanistic spirit, an interest in and a love for 
our kind, while his gracious books served as an 
efficient antidote to the scoffing, melancholic and 
misanthropic influence of Byron and marked an 
era in the development of our literature. 

[22] 



Washington Irving 



He had much in common with Oliver Gold- 
smith, his favorite author, and to a great extent 
his literary model, and I can do no better in clos- 
ing this article than to submit the opening para- 
graph of his life of that writer, as the most 
illuminative description of the character and 
influence of Washington Irving that can be pro- 
duced, for it is the unconscious summing up of 
his own literary style, method and purpose in 
the guise of admiration for a kindred genius: 

" There are few writers for whom the reader feels such 
personal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have 
so eminently possessed the magic gift of identifying them- 
selves with their writings., We read his character in 
every page, and grow into familiar intimacy with him as 
we read. The artless benevolence that beams through- 
out his works ; the whimsical, yet amiable views of human 
life and human nature; the unforced humor, blending 
so happily with good feeling and good sense, and singu- 
larly dashed at times with a pleasing melancholy; even 
the very nature of his mellow, and flowing, and softly- 
tinted style, all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his 
intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same 
time that we admire the author. While the productions 
of writers of loftier pretention and more sounding names 
are suffered to moulder on our shelves, those of Goldsmith 
are cherished and laid in our bosoms. We do not quote 
them with ostentation, but they mingle with our minds, 

[23] 



Washington Irving 



sweeten our tempers and harmonize our thoughts; they 
put us in good humor with ourselves and with the world, 
and in so doing they make us happier and better men." 

In this beautifully phrased excerpt there 
breathes a spirit as rare as it is amiable and 
fraternal. Men of such kindly and disinterested 
genius are but seldom found in the world, and 
their works should be cherished as precious 
legacies ; for while there are ever a sufficiency of 
those who have the ability to create literature in 
its ordinary and grosser aspects, the number of 
those who are competent to awaken the dormant 
activities of our better angels is very small. 
Even more infrequently do we find an author of 
this character who has the distinction of being 
able to profoundly incorporate his own individ- 
uality into his writings, so that he lives and 
moves and has a being upon the printed page, 
thus projecting his personality into future gen- 
erations. Such was Washington Irving; his 
gifts were born with him and died with him; 
there can never be another who will in all 
respects be like him. 



[24] 



Washington Irving 



II 

Personal Characteristics of Washington Irving 

When Washington Irving was born in New 
York City on April 3, 1783, it was a compara- 
tively small town of perhaps 25,000 population, 
with commercial, money-making proclivities, 
and dominated distinctly by Dutch influence. 
The place partook of the character of a village, 
having its streets shaded by poplar trees, and a 
spirit of neighborliness and good-will prevailing 
throughout its limits, which on the north did not 
extend much beyond the present line of Cham- 
bers street. The family of William Irving was 
large, embracing eleven children, of whom 
Washington was the youngest. The father had 
originally followed the occupation of seafaring, 
having his home in the Orkney Islands, but 
after his marriage at Falmouth, England, he 
abandoned this calling and settling in New York, 
became prominent in mercantile pursuits. 

Ere Washington had passed the years of child- 
hood, he began to develop and exhibit those traits 
of character and tendencies of mind which in 
future days were to render him distinguished in 
the realm of letters; he was fond of Chaucer 

[25] 



Washington Irving 



and Spenser, a lover of the quaint and curious, 
of a wandering, Bohemian disposition, indolent 
and devoid of ambition. Moreover, a weakness 
of the lungs with which he was afflicted was an 
added handicap to his prospects, and altogether 
the likelihood of his ever achieving any worthy- 
success in the world was very remote. Evidently 
his parents little appreciated or understood the 
rare gifts and capacities which in an embryonic 
way were taking shape in the heart and intellect 
of this sickly, unconventional and ingenuous 
youth, for a Puritanical discipline was main- 
tained by them over their children. William 
Irving was a deacon in the Presbyterian church, 
and of an arbitrary disposition, and though Mrs. 
Irving was an amiable and beautiful woman, 
both were of the opinion that levity and mirth, 
no matter how innocent, was of an evil tendency 
and to be discouraged, so that Washington was 
more than once reproved in his play by his 
mother, who would remark, " O, Washington, if 
you were only good!" 

The birthplace of Irving was at 131 William 
street, halfway between Fulton and John ; a year 
later, the family moved across the street into a 
house built in the Dutch style, standing with its 

[26] 



Washington Irving 



gable facing the street, and having the pictur- 
esque interest of its peculiar kind of architecture ; 
and here Washington dwelt up to the age of 
nineteen, when the family took up their newly- 
purchased abode at the north-west corner of 
William and Ann streets. It was at about this 
date that he began his literary career by contrib- 
uting to the " Morning Chronicle " under the 
nom de plume of " Jonathan Oldstyle," and it 
was now that his pulmonary affection began 
to excite apprehension on the part of his family. 
Yet another residence in New York in which 
Irving made his home was that built by him at 
the south-west corner Irving Place and East 
Seventeenth street. Concerning it Rufus R. 
Wilson, writing in " Harper's Weekly/' (vol. xl., 
No. 2081) says: 

" It became the centre of a little family settlement, 
from which Irving Place took its name. It fronts on 
Irving Place, but can be entered only from Seventeenth 
street. Irving would not permit a door and steps in front, 
for he loved to sit in the big room that in his day occu- 
pied the entire ground story of the house and to gaze 
through ample windows down the hill, at the East river 
filled with craft bound to and from the Sound. This was 
Irving's favorite room. Here he wrote and sat on long 
winter evenings before the great fireplace, with his pipe 

[27] 



Washington Irving 



and his thoughts for company. * * * Before the front 
windows on Irving Place hangs an iron balcony, and this, 
on those rare summer evenings when he was in New York, 
was his favorite seat. * * * His occupancy of the house 
ended not long after his return from Spain (1846), where 
he had filled the post of American minister ; but the build- 
ing remained the property of the Irving family for many 
years." 

While yet a mere boy, and with a defective 
education, young Irving had been assigned by his 
parents to the profession of the law, the prepara- 
tory studies for which he pursued in a very in- 
different manner, for no occupation could have 
been selected for him of a more uncongenial 
character. It is therefore quite unnecessary to 
say that though he was admitted to the bar, and 
not long after was retained as one of the counsel 
for Aaron Burr, spending two months in Rich- 
mond, but receiving no call for the employment 
of his ready pen, he never attempted to estab- 
lish himself in practice; moreover, that legal lore 
had no attraction for him, even if it were not 
positively distasteful, is indicated by the fact that 
throughout his voluminous writings there is 
little or nothing to reveal that he was in any 
manner acquainted with the profession. At the 

[28] 



Washington Irving 



age of seventeen, he made a visit to his two 
married sisters residing in Johnstown, N. Y. ; 
ascending the Hudson river in a sloop to Albany, 
and thence by stage via Ballston Springs, then a 
watering place of nation-wide appeal, to his des- 
tination. Two years later the trip was repeated, 
Irving at this time being seriously ill with what 
was believed to be incipient consumption. The 
following season, in 1803, he was invited by Mr. 
Josiah O. Hoffman, in whose office he was study- 
ing law, to accompany his family on a trip to 
Montreal and Quebec, and a year subsequent he 
was sent by his brothers to travel in Europe in 
the hope of thus restoring his health, which had 
become so infirm that the captain of the ship, as 
he observed his debilitated condition as he was 
assisted to board the vessel, said that he believed 
that he would not live to complete the voyage 
and that he would be buried at sea. 

But when after two years of agreeable and 
instructive loitering at the shrines of old world 
history, legend and culture, he returned to 
America with recovered health, he was prepared 
to take up that prominent literary role which he 
was destined to adorn. He did not, however, 
apply himself vigorously to the occupation of a 

[29] 



Washington Irving 



writer, but employed much of his time in 
diversions, being very fond of society and popu- 
lar in the social circles of New York, Albany, 
Ballston Springs and other outlying communi- 
ties. Of an amiable and generous disposition, 
witty and accomplished, fastidiously appareled, 
a sketcher and flutist of considerable skill, a 
lover of romance and acquainted with the 
legendary tales of love and heroism, and 
altogether a young man of brilliant parts and 
magnetic attractions, he was a welcome guest 
and a valuable asset at every social function. 

Soon after Irving's return, in 1806, he began 
the publication of a serial which was to introduce 
him to the people as a writer of real distinction. 
It appeared as " Salmagundi," which had its 
beginning in January, 1807, and continuing a 
year, with twenty numbers. He had associated 
with him in this unique and popular periodical, 
which aimed to be a facetiously critical organ 
of contemporary affairs, his brother William and 
James K. Paulding, who under assumed names 
contributed brief essays and poems which remain 
to this day of a rank hardly excelled in the sphere 
of high-class humorous writings. Concerning 

[30] 



Washington Irving 



the identification of the respective work of the 
three editors, the American Cyclopedia says: 

"<No distinct announcement has even been made of 
the part borne by each of the writers; but the poetical 
epistles are said to have been written by William Irving, 
and the prose papers to have proceeded in about equal 
measure from his associates. Those by 'Anthony Ever- 
green, Gent*/ bear internal marks of the pen of Washing- 
ton Irving. * * * The pleasant portrait of ' My Uncle 
John ' is understood to have been the work of Paulding; 
and from his pen also proceeded the original sketch of 
Autumnal Reflections/ which was, however, extended 
and wrought out by Irving/' 

The next venture that Irving seems to have 
applied himself to was " The Literary Picture 
Gallery and Admonitory Epistles to the Visitors 
to Ballston Spa, by Simeon Senex, Esq.," and 
issued in seven numbers at that place in the sum- 
mer of 1808, he then being of the age of twenty- 
five years. Though it is not positively known 
that Irving was connected with this small and 
humorous local periodical, it is believed on good 
evidence that he was either its editor or one of 
its contributors. 

The village of Ballston Springs, seven miles 
from Saratoga, and having a population of 
something more than four thousand, though now 

3 [31] 



Washington Irving 



a quiet place unknown to fame, was in the 
days we are writing of a noted summer resort, 
while as yet Saratoga Springs was practically 
unknown. Its medicinal waters enjoyed a high 
reputation for their curative qualities, attracting 
many seekers of health to visit them, while the 
wealth, culture and fashion from all parts of the 
country consorted there for purposes of relaxa- 
tion or social enjoyment. The principal hostelry 
of the place was the famous Sans Souci Hotel, the 
headquarters of the brilliant fashionable life 
which once throbbed and glittered in this now 
placid and uneventful village. In the book, 
" Salmagundi," {No. xvi) may be found an 
article on " Style at Ballston " written in the 
whimsical vein which characterizes the volume, 
and undoubtedly the product of Irving' s pen, or 
else was inspired by him. The following excerpt 
will convey an idea of the contribution: 

"A sober citizen's wife will break half a dozen mil- 
liners' shops, and sometimes starve her family a whole 
season to enable herself to make the Spring's campaign 
in style. She repairs to the seat of war with a mighty 
force of trunks and bandboxes, like so many ammuni- 
tion chests, filled with caps, hats, gowns, ribbons, shawls, 
and all the various artillery of fashionable warfare. The 
lady of a southern planter will lay out the whole annual 

[32] 



Washington Irving 



produce of a rice plantation in silver and gold muslins, 
lace veils, and new liveries; carry a hogshead of tobacco 
on her head, and trail a bale of sea-island cotton at her 
heels; while a lady of Boston or Salem w,ill wrap her- 
self up in the net proceeds of a cargo of whaleoil, and 
tie on her hat with a quintal of codfish/' 

It was at about this time, and probably during 
Irving's visits to Ballston Springs, that he was 
entertained at the Knickerbocker home in 
Schaghticoke, (pronounced Skat-a-cook, with the 
accent on the first syllable) which was located 
about fifteen miles eastwardly and across the 
Hudson. The Knickerbockers were a prominent 
Dutch Colonial family who had long resided on 
their estate on the south bank of the Hoosac 
river, and within their goodly mansion, still 
standing, extended an old-time generous hospi- 
tality. Irving had formed an intimate friend- 
ship with Herman H. Knickerbocker, who was 
a Congressman, and at different times visited 
him at Schaghticoke, where, being impressed 
with the old Dutch heirlooms — portraits, furni- 
ture, and accumulations in the garret of chests, 
old-time apparel, etc., he conceived the idea of 
writing his " History of New York " under the 
assumed name 'of " Diedrich Knickerbocker. " 

[S3] 



Washington Irving 



Having an acquaintance with these facts, it is 
very interesting to note the allusions to the 
Schaghticoke Knickerbockers made by Diedrich 
in the introductory pages of the book. In the 
"Account of the Author " we are informed that, 

" He extended his journey up to the residence of his 
relations at Schaghticoke. On his way thither, he stopped 
for some days at Albany for which city he js known to 
have entertained a great partiality. * * * Having 
passed some time very agreeably at Albany, our author 
proceeded to Schaghticoke; where, it is but justice to 
say, he was received with open arms, and treated with 
wonderful loving-kindness. He was much looked up to 
by the family, being the first historian of the name; and 
was considered almost as great a man as his cousin the 
Congressman — with whom, by-the-Jby, he became per- 
fectly reconciled and contracted a strong friendship." 

Again, in Chapter I, Book III, the author says : 
" Such are my feelings when I revisit the family 
mansion of the Knickerbockers, and spend a 
lonely hour in the chamber where hang the por- 
traits of my forefathers. * * * As I pace 
the darkened chamber and lose myself in melan- 
choly musings, the shadowy images around me 
almost seem to steal once more into existence — 
their countenances to assume the animation of 

[34] 



Washington Irving 



life — their eyes to pursue me in every move- 
ment." 

It is a remarkable fact and an enduring monu- 
ment to the genius of Irving, one moreover which 
he beheld erected in his own day, that while pre- 
vious to the appearance of his " History of New 
York " the name and family of Knickerbocker 
were of little account except locally about 
Schaghticoke, the cognomen came to stand for 
the titular genius of New York City, and to 
represent, to use Irving's prefatory words forty 
years later, " Knickerbocker societies, Knicker- 
bocker insurance companies, Knickerbocker 
steamboats, Knickerbocker omnibuses, Knicker- 
bocker bread, Knickerbocker ice; and when I 
find New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding 
themselves on being ' genuine Knickerbockers/ 
I please myself with the persuasion that I have 
struck the right chord." 

The fine old Knickerbocker mansion is stand- 
ing today practically as it was when young Irving 
was entertained under its hospitable roof and 
meditated on the Indian, legendary, colonial, 
revolutionary and domestic traditions which 
abound in this quiet, well-nigh forgotten neigh- 
borhood. The modern lines of travel have left it 



[35] 



Washington Irving 



secluded and unvisited except by the few pil- 
grims, who, weary of the rush and confusion of 
present days, love to retire to the unfrequented 
places of primitive times and commune with the 
memories of historic locations and the spirits of 
those whose work was associated with such 
notable shrines. 

In 1809, at the age of twenty-six, Irving pub- 
lished his " Knickerbocker History of New 
York," which for originality of conception, 
literary grace of execution, mock-gravity of 
delineation, and sparkling, spontaneous humor, 
is stamped with the shining seal of genius, and 
is considered by some authorities to exhibit the 
most striking gifts and to possess the most last- 
ing qualities of all his books. Though his share 
of the profits accruing from the first edition of 
the work amounted to the encouraging sum of 
three thousand dollars, it was ten years or more 
before he again employed himself earnestly in 
literary pursuits, spending the most of his time 
in the social diversions of which he was ever 
fond. Other explanations for his inactivity are 
found in the fact that he had been sorely grief- 
smitten by the death of his fiancee, Matilda Hofif- 
man, and that he had become a partner in the 



[36] 



Washington Irving 



hardware importing firm of his brothers, which 
circumstances, together with his constitutional 
tendency to indolence, confined his writings to 
occasional productions of a not important char- 
acter. He visited England again in 1815 for 
the purpose of assisting in the affairs of the 
Liverpool branch of his firm's business, an 
employment for which he was in no manner 
adapted, and after an ineffectual struggle of a 
few years' duration the concern went into bank- 
ruptcy, and Irving was thrown upon the re- 
sources of his pen for a livelihood. By this time 
he had become quite at home in England, having 
a married sister, Mrs. Van Wart, living in Birm- 
ingham, with whom he sojourned. His writings 
had made him the friend of Scott, Moore, Camp- 
bell and other literary lights of Great Britain, 
and the first named recommending him to a 
prominent English publisher, the "Sketch Book" 
was issued and was received with a most gener- 
ous approval. " Bracebridge Hall " followed in 
1822, "Tales of a Traveller" in 1824; and 
" Salmagundi " and the " History of New York " 
now having become known and admired in Eng- 
land, Irving found himself enjoying the highest 
of social and literary distinctions. To follow his 

[37] 



Washington Irving 



brilliant European career, to return with him to 
America in 1832 and to delineate his subsequent 
history, is a task which I did not propose for 
myself, and therefore for the rest, having fol- 
lowed him somewhat closely till his genius has 
been developed and his fame assured, I will dwell 
in a general way upon certain interesting and 
illuminative phases of his life and character. 

Irving was a man of singular elevation and 
purity of mind, finely poetic in his sentiments, 
wonderfully sensitive to the beauties and moods 
of nature, and of a dreamy, romantic disposition. 
To him womankind appealed with an irresistible 
power; his fervent and unsullied imagination 
arrayed them in celestial grace and endowed 
them with heavenly characteristics of mind, 
body and soul. He was quick to observe and 
eager to appreciate whatever was kind, good or 
worthy, but from all that savored of vulgarity or 
evil he would turn away and refuse to contem- 
plate; suffering in man or beast, when he 
observed it, was communicated through his high- 
wrought sympathies to himself ; having dreamed 
that he had killed a robin, he was so distressed 
by the remembrance of the vision that he was 
compelled to arise from his bed and to divert 

[38] 



Washington Irving 



his mind by reading. Contrary to the impression 
which one gathers from the somewhat stalwart 
frame of Irving as he appears in his portraits, 
he was a man of infirm constitution, with an 
inherent lack of confidence in himself, exceed- 
ingly sensitive to criticism, and afflicted with a 
disposition to melancholy. To the close of his 
literary career, the event of the publication of an 
additional work from his pen was attended with 
painful apprehension of its failing to meet the 
favor of the reading public; even the earlier 
volumes of the " Life of Washington " were 
issued with anxious solicitude, though this, his 
last and most laborious writing, enjoyed from 
the first a splendid success. 

As an instance of Irving' s modest estimate of 
his capacities there might be mentioned his 
nervous dread of assuming the position of Min- 
ister to Spain, to which honor he had, at the 
suggestion of Daniel Webster, been appointed in 
1842 by President Tyler. In great agitation of 
mind he paced the floor of his home at Sunnyside, 
saying, "It is hard, very hard; yet I must try 
to bear it; God tempers the wind to the shorn 
lamb !" Concerning his appointment, Henry Clay 
said, " This is a nomination everybody will con- 

[39] 



Washington Irving 



cur in." Other public honors were offered him; 
he had declined to be a candidate for mayor 
of New York and for member of Congress; he 
had been invited to assume the position of Secre- 
tary of the Navy in Van Buren's cabinet, but he 
felt himself no doubt disqualified by his lack of 
interest in practical and governmental affairs to 
take upon himself the responsibilities of the office. 
At about the time of his appointment as Minister 
to Spain, Charles Dickens visited this country, 
and it being known that he and Irving were inti- 
mate friends, entertaining towards each other a 
generous admiration, the latter was chosen to 
make the speech of introduction at a banquet 
given to Dickens in New York, but owing to the 
emotion under which Irving was laboring he was 
unable to proceed with his remarks. We have, 
regarding his incapacity for any regular occupa- 
tion, the testimony of his own words in a letter 
to Walter Scott, declining to accept the editor- 
ship of an Edinburgh periodical at a salary of 
five hundred pounds, he said: 

" I am unfitted for any periodically recurring task, any 
stipulated labor of mind or body. I have no command of 
my talents such as they are, and have to watch the vary- 
ings of my mind as I would those of a weather-cock. 

[40] 



Washington Irving 



Practice and training may bring me more into rule; but 
at present I am as useless for regular service as one of 
my own country Indians or a Don Cossack. I must keep 
on, therefore, pretty much as I have begun ; writing when 
I can, not what I would. * * * Should Mr. Constable 
(publisher) feel inclined to make a bargain for the wares 
I have on hand, he will encourage me to further enter- 
prise; and it will be something like trading with a gypsy 
for the fruit of his prowlings, who may at one time have 
nothing but a wooden bowl to offer, and at another time 
a silver tankard." 

In personal appearance Irving was five feet 
nine inches in height, of a stout figure, grey 
eyes, brown hair, handsome features and an 
attractive smile. He had an agreeable voice and 
was very companionable, enjoying to relate the 
many and interesting experiences he had met in 
the course of his diversified career. I quote in 
this connection from George W. Curtis : 

" Forty years ago upon a pleasant afternoon, you might 
have seen tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, 
New York, a figure which even then would have been 
called quaint. It was of a man about sixty-six or sixty- 
seven years old, of a rather solid frame, wearing a Talma, 
as a short coat of the time was called, that hung from his 
shoulders, and low shoes, neatly tied, which were observ- 
able at a time when boots were generally worn. The head 
was slightly inclined to one side, the face was smoothly 

[41] 



Washington Irving 



shaven, and the eyes twinkled with kindly humor and 
shrewdness. There was a chirping, cheery, old-school 
air in the whole appearance, an undeniable Dutch aspect, 
which in the streets of New Amsterdam, irresistibly 
recalled Diedr,ich Knickerbocker. * * * This modest 
and kindly man was the creator of Rip Van Winkle; 
he was the father of our literature and at that time its 
patriarch/' 

After his return from Europe in 1832, Irving 
purchased an old stone Dutch residence upon 
land which by subsequent additions came to 
embrace upwards of twenty acres, and located on 
the east bank of the Hudson river near Tarry- 
town, and looking out upon that broad, lake-like 
expanse of the stream, called Tappan Sea. 
Weary of the conventional life which for many 
years he had led in foreign parts, he longed to 
retire to this quiet hermitage, endeared to him 
by the happy associations of his youth, and over 
which brooded the legendary charm which, 
breathed into his books, had served to lend him 
his literary renown. Indeed, this very house 
which he had chosen for his home had figured 
in his " Legend of Sleepy Hollow " as the place 
where Katrina Van Tassel had dwelt and where 
she had been courted by the unfortunate Ichabod 

[42] 



Washington Irving 



Crane. Naming it Wolfert's Roost (or Rest), 
Irving enlarged the dwelling and beautified the 
grounds, making his residence there for the 
remainder of his days, and being never so happy 
as when at Sunnyside, as he afterwards named 
the place. Concerning his home he writes in his 
book, " Wolf ert's Roost:" 

" I have become possessor of the Roost. I have 
repaired and renovated it with religious care, in the genu- 
ine Dutch style, and have adorned and illustrated it with 
sundry relics of the glorious days of New Netherlands. 
A venerable weather-cock of portly Dutch dimensions, 
which once battled with the wind on the top of the Stadt- 
House of New Amsterdam, in the time of Peter Stuy- 
vesant, now erects its crest on the gable end of my edi- 
fice; a gilded horse in full gallop, once the weather-cock 
of the great Vander Heyden Palace of Albany, now glit- 
ters jn the sunshine, and veers with every breeze on the 
peaked turret over my portal. * * * I thank God I 
was born on the banks of the Hudson! I think it an 
invaluable advantage to be born and brought up in the 
neighborhood of some grand and noble object in nature; 
a river, a lake, or a mountain. We make a friendship 
with it, we in a manner ally ourselves to it for life. It 
remains an object of our pride and affections, a rallying 
point, to call us home again after all our wanderings. 
* * * I fancy I can trace much of what is good and 
pleasant in my own heterogeneous compound to my early 

[43] 



Washington Irving 



companionship with this glorious river. In the warmth 
of my youthful enthusiasm, I used to clothe it with moral 
attributes, and almost to give it a soul. * * * I gloried 
in its simple, quiet, majestic, epic flow; ever straight 
forward. * * * The Hudson is, in a manner, my first 
and last love/' 

Much of Irving's literary work was accom- 
plished under this roof, including his "Life of 
Goldsmith/' " Mahomet and His Successors " 
and the "Life of Washington;" distinguished 
persons were coming and going, and his days 
were crowned with affluence, domestic enjoyment 
and the veneration of his countrymen. It should 
be said, however, regarding the popularity of his 
books, that for a period of five years following 
1843, when the contract under which his works 
had been published expired, the demand for them 
ceased and Irving was despondent concerning 
their future, expressing the opinion that they 
were antiquated, had " turned to chaff and 
stubble," and doing nothing towards inducing a 
publisher to undertake a new edition. Finally, in 
1848, G. P. Putnam, of New York, proposed to 
bring out a uniform library edition in fifteen 
volumes, which offer being accepted, the books 
were published and enjoyed a very large sale, 

T44] 



Washington Irving 



eight hundred thousand volumes having been 
printed up to the year 1860, thus affording the 
author a considerable income ($9,000 a year), 
and reassuring him of the permanent success of 
his books. Of his pleasant life at Sunnyside 
with his household affairs presided over by his 
nieces, he writes not long after his return from 
Spain, in 1846: " My own place has never been 
so beautiful as at present. I have made more 
openings by pruning and cutting down trees, so 
that from the piazza I have several charming 
views of the Tappan Sea and the hills beyond, all 
set as it were in verdant flames; and I am never 
tired of sitting there in my old Voltaire chair of 
a long summer morning with a book in my hand, 
sometimes reading, sometimes musing, and some- 
times dozing and mixing all up in a pleasant 
dream." 

Sunnyside is located three miles south of 
Tarrytown, and a mile north of Irvington-on- 
the-Hudson; it is reached from the highway by 
Sunnyside Lane, which in Irving' s words, is "a 
lonely, rambling, down-hill lane, overhung with 
trees, with a wild brook dashing along, and 
crossing and recrossing it." It is a secluded 
place, the dwelling standing near the bank of the 

[45] 



Washington Irving 



river, which at this point has a breadth of three 
miles, and the house and premises remain prac- 
tically as they were left when Irving died. About 
twenty-two years ago an extensive addition was 
made to the residence, following the same style, 
but it is not visible from the front, care having 
been taken to preserve the original appearance. 
Irving's library, with its furnishings, remains as 
he left it. In compliance with a wish expressed 
in his will, Sunnyside has remained in the posses- 
sion of his collateral descendants, the present 
owners being Mr. and Mrs. Louis du Pont Irving 
and their three sons. Mr. Irving is a great-great- 
nephew of Washington Irving, and his sons are 
the fifth generation of the family who have lived 
in the home. Sunnyside is sought out by many 
visitors, and it no doubt will continue for many 
generations to be the Mecca of admirers of the 
father of American Literature. 

Here, in the delightful surroundings of his 
Sunnyside home, a few months before he died, 
Irving finished the " Life of Washington/' 
rejoicing that he had been given the strength to 
write with his own hand its concluding pages, 
and having remarked that he would be willing 
to take his departure when this work should be 

[46] 



Washington Irving 



completed. The declining years of few have 
been so happy as were Irving's, honored as he 
was at home and abroad, and with everything to 
render existence attractive, at his disposal. He 
had no enemies, a fact which cannot be easily 
duplicated in the case of an author so eminently 
successful as he, though Cooper was known to 
cherish for years a jealousy towards the writer 
who in this country was even more popular than 
himself. Mr. Putnam, Irving's publisher, in his 
" Recollections of Irving," (Atlantic, November, 
1860) has recorded in an interesting manner how 
this unfortunate alienation was healed. Being 
the publisher for both authors, and the two 
happening at his office at the same hour, Mr. 
Putnam somewhat at a venture brought them 
together with a most happy result; they visited 
cordially for an hour, and parted the best of 
friends. It was not very long after this recon- 
ciliation that Cooper died, and that Irving had a 
part in the commemorative exercises which were 
held in honor of the great novelist. One can 
easily imagine how that in this interview the 
amiable author of the " Sketch Book " would take 
due account of Cooper's irascible disposition and 

4 [47] 



Washington Irving 



aim to conciliate and make him his loyal well- 
wisher. 

In the fall of 1858, about a year before he 
died, Irving suffered with shortness of breath, 
nervousness and inability to obtain sufficient 
sleep, his malady being enlargement of the heart. 
During the Christmas season his condition was 
unimproved and he was afflicted still with 
nervous conditions ; he had a dread of the nights 
and of being alone, his mind in the meantime 
being one day unnaturally active and cheerful, 
and on another, dull and despondent. In the 
spring his condition somewhat improved, but the 
sleeplessness and difficult breathing again became 
prominent in the fall, till on Monday evening, 
November 28, 1859, he died suddenly as he was 
about to retire. A year previous he had 
remarked to George W. Curtis, "I am getting 
ready to go; I am shutting up my doors and 
windows." 

The closing scenes of Irving's life were in 
keeping with the spirit of tranquil cheerfulness 
which had characterized him throughout his 
career; his life had been one of amiability and 
good service to his fellows, and now his depar- 
ture from earthly places and associations was 

[48] 



Washington Irving 



accompanied by kindly and beneficent circum- 
stances. Surrounded by his brother Ebenezer 
and daughters, who composed his household, 
and his nephew, Rev. Pierre M. Irving, after- 
wards author of his elaborate biography, and 
other relatives, he passed into the great Land of 
the Future. On the day previous, Sunday, he 
had attended the Episcopal church at Tarrytown, 
of which he was a communicant, though it was 
observed that he appeared more infirm in health 
than usual. During the following day he was 
about the house and grounds of Sunnyside, 
joined his family at dinner and enjoyed the even- 
ing with them in social intercourse, entering into 
the happy spirit of the hour with his usual zest 
and relish, though mentioning that he was 
embarrassed in his breathing. Having bidden 
all good-night, he went to his chamber above, 
when suddenly with a sound as if choking, and 
with his left hand over his heart he fell forward, 
arresting his fall by catching hold of a table, and 
immediately expired. 

Irving was buried on December 1st, a beauti- 
fully mild, dreamy day, when, as if nature appre- 
ciative of the deep devotion ever shown her by 
the departed author, had enwrapped the Hudson 

f49] 



Washington Irving 



valley, though at the gates of winter, in an 
atmosphere of genial warmth, typical both of his 
gentle, amiable character and of the gracious 
quality of his writings. He was buried with his 
kindred in the graveyard of the little old Dutch 
church, two miles north of Tarrytown, where a 
few years before he had brought the remains of 
his father's family, who had been buried in the 
plot of the Brick Church of New York. Thus 
it is observed how deep a hold this quiet, romantic 
and historic locality had taken upon the imagina- 
tion and affection of Irving, additional proof of 
which may be found in the volumes of his writ- 
ings, wherein he bestows all the literary grace 
which he was able to command upon its natural 
charms, early associations and legendary tradi- 
tions. The grave is on somewhat elevated ground 
east of the church which by the way, is the oldest 
house of worship in the State; it is but a short 
distance north of the Pocantico creek, which 
makes its way through Sleepy Hollow, and it 
overlooks the Tappan Sea; it is, indeed, in the 
very heart of that territory which Irving with 
his magic pen has made forever famous. He has 
described the spot in his " Legend of Sleepy 
Hollow": 

[50] 



Washington Irving 



" The sequestered situation of this church seems always 
to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It 
stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust trees and lofty 
elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls 
shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming 
through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends 
from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, 
between which peeps may be caught of the blue hills of 
the Hudson. To look upon this grass-grown yard where 
the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think 
that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one 
side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which 
raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of 
fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not 
far from the church, was formerly thrown a bridge; 
the road that led to it and the bridge itself were thickly 
shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it 
even in the daytime, but occasioned a fearful darkness at 
night. Such was the favorite haunt of the headless horse- 
man, and the place where he was most frequently 
encountered/ ' 

Irving had expressed a desire to go out of the 
world " with all sail set/' a wish which was 
granted, for intellectually at least, he was normal 
and vigorous to the last. Moreover, the ship 
of his genius did not founder at his death but is 
still beautifully visible, riding gracefully the sea 
of time and bearing rich cargoes of spice, 

[51] 



Washington Irving 



luscious fruit, gems and golden ore from the 
sunny clime of his genial and prolific nature. In 
the pages of his books are the fragrance of 
tropical, unidentified flowers, songs without 
words, sermons without preaching and instruc- 
tion without teaching. Irving's mission in the 
world was not that of a moralizer in the narrower 
sense of the word, but rather he was a high 
benevolent influence, intangible, elusive, but 
nevertheless real and effective. Though he 
recommends no ethical dictum, it is difficult in 
the light of the spirit of his books to entertain 
an unworthy thought, or to resist its invitation to 
be conformed to the mind of the good and noble 
soul which the reader instinctively feels is indit- 
ing the words he peruses. Herein lies his power, 
an efficacy that will live on when the more par- 
ticularized ethics of the day shall have been for- 
gotten. 



[52] 



JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 



One of the most beautiful localities and his- 
torically interesting places in America is Coopers- 
town, N. Y., at the southern end of Otsego Lake, 
where the river Susquehanna takes its rise at 
an altitude of 1,250 feet above the level of the 
sea. It is a quiet village of about 3,000 souls, 
and being somewhat remote from the great 
routes of travel, maintains a still and dreamy 
atmosphere in keeping with the literary, romantic 
and historic traditions which cluster about the 
sylvan shores of this lovely sheet of water. In 
prehistoric times, on the site of the town was 
an Indian village, as the relics unearthed clearly 
indicate, while in memory of later aboriginal in- 
habitants who dwelt here, a marble slab has been 
set in the mound where lie the ashes of many 
of their dead, and is thus inscribed : 

White Man, greeting! 
We, near whose bones you stand, 
were Iroquois. The wide land 
which now is yours, was ours. 
Friendly hands have given back 
to us enough for a tomb. 

[S3] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



This plain memorial lies flat and on a level 
with the turf, so that it might easily be over- 
looked, weather-stained as it is, and partly hid- 
den by grass and wild flowers. 

Revolutionary history, also, had this place as 
a theatre for the enactment of one of its events. 
In the summer of 1779, while General James 
Clinton with his command of about 1,600 men 
were marching to join General John Sullivan in 
his expedition against the Iroquois Indians, he 
constructed a dam across the outlet of the lake 
at what is now Cooperstown, and having 
embarked his men and loaded his supplies onto 
two hundred batteaux below, the impounded 
waters were released, the river raised to a 
navigable depth and the boats were thus floated 
down the stream, much to the consternation of 
the Indians who were awed by the great flood 
inundating the valley in the arid month of 
August. But it is from the novelist Cooper that 
the lake and village almost wholly derive their 
fame. 

James Fenimore Cooper was one of the great- 
est and most picturesquely interesting literary 
characters that this country has produced, 
While he is not equal to Hawthorne in the artis- 

[54] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



tic handling of plots and in the subtle delinea- 
tion of character ; though he is inferior to Irving 
in smooth and cultured quality of style, yet in 
extent of literary production, durability, breadth 
of popularity and ethical influence, he perhaps 
excelled them. Few writers ever enjoyed a wider 
reading than Cooper ; all Europe and even orien- 
tal peoples devoured his books; "from New 
York to Ispahan, from St. Petersburg to Rio 
Janeiro," his novels evoked delight and admira- 
tion, and the sale of his works remains steady 
and large. Besides his literary delinquencies — 
which, except his prolixity, are unobserved 
perhaps by the average reader, — the infirmities 
of temper that kept him embroiled through the 
later years of his life in perpetual contention 
were an added handicap; but his fertile intellect 
with his really kind and noble nature, enabled 
him to produce many volumes of delightful and 
improving fiction, so that when he died he was 
all but universally respected, admired and loved. 
Cooper came of good stock. His father, 
Judge William Cooper, a man of force, character 
and business ability, journeyed in 1785 from 
his home in Burlington, N. J., to Otsego Lake, 
N. Y., three hundred miles away, and laid out 

[55] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



forty thousand acres of land which had come into 
his possession. There he lived as a hunter, sub- 
sisting on game while he explored and mapped 
out his lands, and in the following summer he 
offered for sale and in the space of sixteen days 
disposed of all his holdings except a tract at the 
south end of the lake, which he reserved for his 
private estate. It was his boast that, beginning 
life "with small capital and a large family," he 
settled more acres than any man in America. He 
served nine years as first judge of the Otsego 
county court of common pleas and two terms in 
Congress. The author cherished vivid and affec- 
tionate remembrances of his father, and refers 
to him as " a noble looking, warm-hearted, witty 
father, with his deep laugh and sweet voice as 
he used to light the way with his anecdotes and 
fun." 

His mother was a woman of exceptional worth 
and culture, a daughter of Richard Fenimore, 
whose home was in New Jersey. The Fenimores 
were of Swedish extraction and enjoyed a high 
social standing. Mrs. Cooper was beautiful with 
a dash of romance in her nature, but withal a 
ready companion and an efficient helpmeet in all 
her husband's enterprises. The author resembled 

[56] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



her in his personal appearance and also from her 
derived his liking for legendary and imaginative 
studies. 

The early life of Cooper was such as to foster 
the growth of romantic ideas and to familiarize 
him with the adventurous life of the frontier, in 
the midst of which he dwelt. Judge Cooper hav- 
ing made his home on his estate at Otsego Lake, 
there at the age of thirteen months came with 
the family the babe who was to immortalize the 
wilderness place and make a great name for him- 
self in literature. It was a school in which he 
was taught the fascinating first-hand lessons of 
adventure and heroism, though the settlers, as 
Judge Cooper said of them, were of the lowest 
sort, while Indians, hunters and trappers were 
familiar to the boy as they came and went in 
their picturesque and untutored individualities. 

Cooperstown, as the little village which grew 
up around the home of the leading citizen was 
appropriately called, came to be as a frontier set- 
tlement a rendezvous and asylum for people of 
all nations and of every grade of intelligence — 
a strange and nondescript population, but which 
was not without deep and lasting influence in the 
development of the mind of the future novelist 



[57] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



in a knowledge of original and diversified char- 
acter. Moreover, the country where he dwelt at 
the head of the beautiful Susquehanna valley, 
with Otsego Lake embosomed in the great forest 
and forming the crystal feeder of the delightfully 
meandering river, impressed itself indelibly upon 
his sensitive and responsive imagination, linger- 
ing in his mind as a fertile source of romantic 
fiction till his latest day. It was not all, how- 
ever, of an external influence that made up his 
preparation for his life work, for in his home 
he enjoyed the intellectual and cultural elements 
by which he was insensibly tutored and refined. 
Thus he grew into boyhood and on into young 
manhood with a cheerful disposition and enter- 
prising spirit, entering with zest into the employ- 
ments and diversions of the settlement and en- 
joying boating on the lake, particularly when 
the waves ran high. The primitiveness of the 
country about Cooperstown at that time is evi- 
denced by an episode that Cooper was fond of 
relating: one day while in his father's garden, 
a deer sprang into the inclosure from the main 
street, and running very close to him, dashed 
into the forest in the rear of the house. 

[58] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



Young Cooper attended for a time Master 
Cory's Academy, which was maintained in the 
village, and he then was for a period of four 
years a pupil of Rev. Thomas Allison, at St. 
Peter's Rectory, Albany. At the age of thirteen 
he was sent to Yale College, being with one ex- 
ception the youngest student in the institution. 
He entered the freshman class, spending the first 
year, according to his own statement, in play, and 
left in his junior year on account of a " frolic," 
evidently meaning some infringement of the 
college rules. Much of his time while there was 
employed in long walks through the fields and 
over the hills and in gazing by the hour upon 
the sea from vantage points on the high lands. 

He perhaps derived from his familiarity with 
Otsego Lake and the ocean view at New Haven 
an ambition to go to sea, and we find him after 
leaving college shipping as a common sailor on 
the " Sterling," a merchantman sailing from 
New York, bound for Cowes, England. After 
a year's service he obtained a commission as mid- 
shipman in the United States Navy and entered 
upon his duties in January, 1808. From active 
sea life he was transferred to Oswego, N. Y., 
to superintend the construction of the brig 

[59] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



" Oneida/ 5 for service on Lake Ontario. His 
five years' maritime experience gave him an inti- 
mate knowledge of seafaring in all its details, 
both as to merchantmen and ships of war, infor- 
mation which he turned to account in his sea 
stories, acknowledged to be the best written in 
this field of literature. In this connection it 
might be said that his determination to write the 
book entitled " The Pilot " was made through a 
conversation in which Scott's story, "The Pi- 
rate," was cited to illustrate that author's wide 
information, inclusive of seafaring. Cooper, 
knowing that Scott's acquaintance with the sub- 
ject was comparatively limited, resolved to write 
a novel that would be at least technically correct 
as regarded nautical life and employments. The 
decided success of " The Pilot " encouraged him 
to bring out his other great sea stories. 

How long Cooper would have remained in the 
navy had he not met and married Miss Susan 
DeLancey, of Heathcote Hall, Mamaroneck, 
Westchester county, N. Y., will never be known. 
His determination to forsake the fascinating life 
of the sea for the tame and monotonous pursuit 
of agriculture speaks highly of the' charms and 
excellent elements of character possessed by the 

[60] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



bride, whom he wedded on New Year's day, 
1811. 

In his domestic associations Cooper was ever 
fortunate, for to the advantage derived from the 
high intelligence and cultivated character of his 
mother, to whom he was indebted for the fer- 
vent filial love and the instructions of his youth, 
in his manhood was added that of the controlling 
spell of a woman of rare attractions of mind and 
heart. She it was who spoke the first word of 
encouragement that embarked him on his great 
career of authorship, and throughout his life 
when the storms of detraction raged about him, 
his domestic relations were ever characterized 
by love, peace and quietness. In the hallowed 
confines of the home the delightful woman who 
presided there knew and loved the burly and 
headstrong author as really a meek and lowly 
man when appealed to not by argument but by 
loving suasion. The regard in which he held his 
wife is evidenced by the fact that, her people 
being tories in the Revolution, some of them 
serving in the British army, he studiously 
avoided in his writings uncomplimentary allu- 
sions to that odious class of colonists. Not long 
after their marriage they visited Cooperstown, 

f6i] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



riding in a gig drawn by two horses driven tan- 
dem, and returning to Mamaroneck made their 
home for a time at Heathcote Hall. Then they 
set up a home of their own in a cottage not far 
from the De Lancey house and after a brief resi- 
dence there removed to Cooperstown, where 
Cooper began the erection of a fine stone house 
on the southwest shore of the lake. There, at 
the age of twenty-five, he lived the easy life of a 
country gentleman, engaged in agriculture and 
diverting himself with the flute, boating and rid- 
ing. Nothing in his manner of life indicated that 
he would ever be other than an intelligent 
farmer and an upright useful citizen. 

He frequently shifted his place of residence 
between his home town and that of his wife, and 
in the course of time erected a house on property 
inherited by her and located four miles from 
Mamaroneck and twenty-five miles from New 
York. The site commanded a superb view over 
Long Island Sound, which was much admired 
by Cooper, and here in the lap of peace at about 
the age of thirty he began his literary career. 

He was an omniverous reader, delighting par- 
ticularly in Scott's novels, and was much in the 
habit of reading aloud to Mrs. Cooper, of whom 

[62] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



it has been said, " She listened with affectionate 
interest through a long life." One day, having 
thrown down what he called an uninteresting 
novel with the exclamation, " I could write a bet- 
ter myself ! " his wife encouraged him to make 
the trial. As a result of her suggestion he 
brought out at his own expense " Precaution " 
(1820), and in the following year "The Spy," 
the latter attaining popularity at home and 
abroad. From this decided success Cooper 
applied himself assiduously to fiction writing 
until many novels, both of land and sea, had 
fallen from his pen and his name had been estab- 
lished throughout the world as one of the great- 
est literary lights of his own or any time. Thirty- 
four works of fiction were published by him 
between 1820 and 1851, the year of his death, 
besides historical and biographical books, while 
several volumes were left in manuscript. This 
great output of literature evidences the author's 
fertility of invention, facility of expression and 
steadiness of industry. That blemishes may be 
found in his work is the unavoidable result of the 
haste with which it was thrown off, but it is per- 
tinent to consider whether we would be willing 
to have the mass of Cooper's writings lessened 

5 [63] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



at the expense of an improvement of his 
technique. 

Cooper visited Europe in 1826 and remained 
till 1833, traveling in England, France, Belgium, 
Holland, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. His 
intolerant and combative disposition, previously 
not prominently noticeable, now discovered itself 
and for many years remained a besetting infirm- 
ity of mind, involving him in fierce and exhaus- 
tive controversy and litigation. Someone has 
attempted to reconcile the conflicting elements 
of his character, one amiable, generous and kind, 
the other proud, arrogant and intractable, by 
stating that " he was a democrat by conviction 
and an aristocrat by feeling." A thoughtful con- 
sideration, however, of his life and character 
seems rather to favor the view that his belliger- 
ent tendency was but an instance of childish 
spleen so often associated with genius — an 
irritable, unreasoning, unpremeditated queru- 
lousness, entirely out of place with his lofty and 
noble ethical standards. He abused Europeans 
for their criticisms of his home-land and people, 
though himself publishing uncomplimentary 
matter concerning his own country and country- 
men, and his fame which had been great through- 

[64] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



out Europe suffered on account of the castiga- 
tions which foreign periodicals inflicted upon 
him. Returning to the United States, he was 
coldly received through disapprobation of the 
strictures he had made upon the people of other 
lands where he had been entertained and hon- 
ored, and for his derogatory attitude concerning 
Americans, a breach which he set himself still 
further to w r iden by publishing even additional 
offensive criticisms of his countrymen. In 1841 
Thurlow Weed accused him of having " dispar- 
aged American lakes, ridiculed American scen- 
ery, burlesqued American coin and satirized the 
American flag." No doubt the most of Cooper's 
reflections were well founded, and the discrepan- 
cies which a residence in the capitals of Europe 
and journeyings through venerable and highly 
enlightened nations, rich in romantic renown, 
adorned with ancient and beautiful monuments, 
with great universities and vast libraries, had 
made apparent to him, he felt in duty bound to 
utter; but in aiming to improve his countrymen, 
if it is allowable to put that charitable interpre- 
tation upon his conduct, he overshot his mark 
and exasperated them. 

[65] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



A few years after his return from Europe a 
feud which developed between him and the peo- 
ple of Cooperstown made complete the sphere of 
his unpopularity — international, national and 
local. Three Mile Point, or Myrtle Grove, a 
pleasant resort to this day, is located three miles 
north of Cooperstown on the west shore of the 
lake; it is an attractive spot, jutting out from the 
highway into the lake and containing perhaps 
two acres of ground. Cooper, serving as execu- 
tor of his father's will, had the control of the 
property and insisted that his authority should 
be recognized. This the public refused to ac- 
cord, having for years enjoyed the undisturbed 
use of it, though he had no desire in any manner 
to interrupt its employment as an outing place. 
Finally, a tree he valued, standing on the dis- 
puted land, was felled without asking his per- 
mission, and the battle was on. The villagers 
held an indignation meeting and passed resolu- 
tions denunciatory of Cooper and recommend- 
ing that his books be removed from the village 
library. This unseemly and undignified quarrel 
eventuated in favor of Cooper, but the report of 
it spread over the country and periodicals which 
he had by his disparagement of the American 

[66] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



people already provoked, seized upon the story as 
a means of further denunciation, stating gratui- 
tously that the censorious resolutions called for 
the burning of his books. 

But his greatest embroilment began in 1839 
with the publication of his " Naval History of the 
United States," an able and authoritative work, 
but one that increased the disfavor in which he 
was held. In this production he took the ground 
that Commodore Perry did not deserve all the 
honor which he enjoyed for the naval victory of 
Lake Erie, but that Commodore Elliott was 
entitled to as much or more distinction, a con- 
tention which Cooper was able afterward to 
establish in court. The press of the country was 
lashed by this derogation of a popular hero into 
a frenzy of indignation and it poured out the 
vials of its wrath upon the head of the versatile 
feudmaker of Cooperstown. But the storm of 
defamation, far from disconcerting him, nerved 
him for battle, which he entered with all his 
characteristic vigor. 

For a period of several years his principal 
occupation was the management of twenty libel 
suits which he brought against newspapers and 
periodicals in different parts of the country. The 

167] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



larger part of these he conducted personally, as 
his own counsel. One of the most conspicuous 
of them was against the Commercial Advertiser, 
of New York, and which was heard before ref- 
erees in that city in 1842. When, in the course 
of the hearing, the hour had arrived for Cooper's 
summing up, it was conceded by all that the de- 
fense had made an impregnable showing. All 
were against him — the press, public and even 
the referees themselves. Yet, when he had con- 
cluded his address, which consumed in its deliv- 
ery the space of six hours, he had not only unan- 
swerably substantiated his contention but had 
converted the libel law from an emasculated stat- 
ute into a living and mandatory prescript. This 
unexpected display of the author's forensic abil- 
ity was a revelation to all and his speech has 
come down to the present day as one of the great- 
est pleas ever made before the bar of New York 
City. Other suits were but repetitions of this, 
and Cooper finally claimed that all against whom 
he had brought actions had either retracted or 
had been defeated in court. In these suits he 
was seeking vindication only and not a money 
indemnity. He conducted his cases with dig- 
nity, fairness and candor, and was free from 

f68] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



those ill-favored manners and expressions which 
are so common in court proceedings and which 
might have been expected from a man of so recal- 
citrant a disposition. It is a strange and pathetic 
illustration of his dual nature that while in the 
fume and fury of these fierce legal battles there 
should issue from his pen the " Pathfinder/' a 
captivating book breathing of the virgin forest, 
genial in tone and utterly remote from the con- 
tentious spirit by which he was evidently gov- 
erned. Indeed, throughout this period of strife, 
books of fiction, two in the year, generally, were 
published by Cooper, three of which, however, 
were of a controversial character entitled, " The 
Satanstoe," " The Redskins " and " The Chain- 
bearer/' These latter books, though brilliant 
novels, took the unpopular side in the anti-rent 
controversy which then agitated the State of 
New York, and served to further prejudice him 
in the eyes of many of the people. 

The physical and mental outlay of all this liti- 
gation and literary labor must have been very 
exhausting, and the sudden failure of his health 
a few years later has been attributed to the over- 
work of those strenuous and exciting years. The 
spring of 1851 found him in a debilitated condi- 

[69] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



tion, with a derangement of the digestive organs, 
to which dropsy supervened. After having cour- 
ageously submitted to a knowledge of the hope- 
lessness of his condition, though regretting that 
so much of his prospective work remained unac- 
complished, he died on Sunday, the 14th day of 
September, 1851, aged sixty-two years lacking 
one day. During the summer months through 
which he lingered he manifested a cheerful res- 
ignation and was sustained by a confident hope 
in the future beyond. The animosities which he 
had engendered were forgotten by the people and 
universal sorrow and regret were the experience 
everywhere he was known. 

Cooper was a man of magnificent physique, 
nobly handsome features and of a happy, cordial 
disposition. " He looked like a man who had 
lived much in the open air — upon whom the 
rain had fallen and against whom the wind had 
blown. * * * Distinctly through the gathering 
mists of years do his face and form rise up 
before the mind's eye: an image of manly self- 
reliance, of frank courage, of generous impulse : 
a frank friend, an open enemy; a man whom 
many misunderstood, but whom no one could 
understand without honoring and loving." 

[70] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



(Atlantic, vol. ix, p. 68.) Robust and athletic, 
at the age of fifty he was able, while his house 
at Cooperstown was being repaired, to climb lad- 
ders and stagings to the gable and on to the 
ridge of the roof, thus exhibiting his seafaring 
capabilities. He employed himself much in his 
garden and was in the habit of personally taking 
gifts of fruit and vegetables to his friends in the 
village. He was a lover of children. 

His daily routine consisted in writing in his 
library during the morning hours with a favor- 
ite Angora cat as his companion and sometimes 
sleeping on his shoulder. Then his horse, 
" Pumpkin," a nondescript and refractory beast, 
would be hitched to a yellow buggy and Mr. and 
Mrs. Cooper would ride to their farm on the lake- 
side. Dinner was served at three o'clock and the 
remainder of the afternoon was spent with 
friends or in playing chess with Mrs. Cooper. 
During the evening hours he would walk the 
great central hall of the mansion while he medi- 
tated the literary matter that he would commit 
to writing on the following morning. 

This fine old house was burned in 1852. It 
had been the author's childhood home and upon 
his return from Europe had been remodeled by 

[71] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



him in the style of an English country mansion. 
A detailed model of it, both as to exterior and 
interior, with other souvenirs of Cooper, may be 
seen in the Village Club and Library building at 
Cooperstown. The place has well honored the 
memory and preserved the memorials of its dis- 
tinguished son. A beautiful park embraces the 
grounds where Cooper's home once stood, and a 
fine bronze statue, " The Indian Hunter," is its 
central and conspicuous adornment, standing on 
the site of the mansion. Across Main street to 
the north is the graceful and classically lined 
building of the Village Club and Library, in 
which are many mementoes of the Indians — 
articles of apparel, weapons of war and imple- 
ments of domestic life. On the south border of 
the park is Christ Episcopal church, of which 
Cooper was a communicant, and the burying- 
ground where rest his ashes. His pew, which as 
warden he occupied, is fittingly inscribed, but no 
one needs to be directed to his grave for multi- 
tudes have worn a path to one of the greatest 
literary shrines in America. 

Altogether, Cooperstown with its lake of beau- 
tifully irregular shores, surrounded by high 
and forested hills, was a fitting home and the 

[72] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



only suitable burial place for one of America's 
most gifted authors, — for one who wrote charm- 
ingly and understanding^ of primitive times in 
our history and who upon the background of 
long-lapsed sylvan scenes drew word-pictures of 
Indian and pioneer life for the instruction and 
entertainment of generations to come. Here his 
genius seems to brood perpetually with reminders 
of him everywhere ; — even the artistic railway 
station has its interior walls decorated with pic- 
torial representations of scenes from his books. 
But Cooper's name, written indelibly in its shin- 
ing waters, will have its most lasting and fairest 
monument in Otsego Lake. 

Note: — There is little doubt that the original of Cooper's 
most widely known and popular fiction character, Natty Bumpo 
or Leatherstocking, was Nathaniel Shipman, a noted scout and 
Indian fighter whose unmarked grave is in the town of Hoosic, 
Rensselaer county, N. Y. At the beginning of the Revolution 
Shipman, who then resided in Hoosic, was suspected of enter- 
taining a preference for the British cause and was tarred and 
feathered by his neighbors, and from that time for a period of 
twenty-six years was lost to his family and friends. 

His daughter Patience had after his disappearance married 
John Ryan, of Hoosic, who became a prominent citizen and rep- 
resented his district in the Assembly at Albany, in 1803-6. Here 
he met Judge William Cooper of Cooperstown, father of Feni- 
more Cooper the author, who repeatedly referred to the odd 
character and quaint sayings of an old hunter and trapper, 
who, he said, lived in company with a Mohican Indian on Otsego 
Lake, not far from his residence. When Mr. Ryan repeated to 
his wife the account of this unique person, she gave it as her 
opinion that he was her father, and inducing her husband to 

[73] 



James Fenimore Cooper 



go to Cooperstown, he found her conviction to be realized. Ship- 
man was prevailed upon by his son-in-law to return with, him 
to Hoosic, where he made his home with his daughter Mrs. Ryan, 
till his death, in 1809. 

Fenimore Cooper was undoubtedly familiar with the interest- 
ing characters of Nathaniel Shipman and his Indian companion 
and from them probably acquired in a measure his familiarity 
with woodcraft ; — it was quite natural, therefore, for him to 
utilize Nat. or Natty for the conspicuous parts he plays in the 
Leatherstocking Tales. 

Besides the implicit belief of Nathaniel Shipman's daughter 
and that of her husband, John Ryan, that he was the original 
of Leatherstocking, Cooper himself in his " Chronicles of Coop- 
erstown " employs the phrase, " Shipman, the Leatherstocking 
of the region." Again, it is said on good authority that Cooper 
on a blank page of " The Pioneers " indicated the originals of 
the characters delineated in the book, giving to Leatherstocking 
that of Nathaniel Shipman. 



[74] 



WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING 



[Biographical Notes: — Born at Newport, R. I., 1780. Grad- 
uated from Harvard College, 1798. Tutor in a family at Rich- 
mond, Va., 1 798-1800. Pastor of Federal Street, Boston, 
Congregational church till his death, 1803- 1842. Married Ruth 
Gibbs, 1814. Harvard University bestowed upon him title of 
Doctor of Divinity, 1821. Visited Europe and met Wordsworth 
and other distinguished persons, 1822. Died at Bennington, Vt, 
after an illness of twenty-six days, October 2, 1842. Buried in 
Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass.] 

Nothing is further from the practical spirit of 
the times than the character and writings of 
William Ellery Channing. His small, attenuated 
frame, his high and spiritualized conceptions of 
life and duty, the chaste and polished style of his 
rhetoric are as unlike the standards of the day 
as can well be imagined. Yet Channing was 
heard in Boston throughout his long ministry by 
large and attentive congregations and was read 
in all parts of the country, while his works were 
translated into the languages of the leading 
nations of the world. For he was of the nature 
of a prophet, disassociated from formulated 
creeds and speaking in a spirit of universality, 
which appealed to all people everywhere, alike. 
While Channing was classed as a Unitarian, and 
indeed held in a modified form to the tenets of 

[75] 



William Ellery Channing 



that Church, he denied that he was an adherent 
of any sect, but rather an independent seeker 
after truth. But while he refused to subscribe 
to certain theological views concerning the 
Christ, his manifestation of the Christian spirit 
in all his life and writings was remarkably 
evident, one of his leading teachings having been 
that to arrive at the greatest intelligence in 
religious thought and usefulness, it was neces- 
sary to adopt the method of free inquiry. Though 
he has been neglected by the present generation, 
there is no writer who may more profitably be 
studied by those who would incorporate into our 
social and political life higher and purer stand- 
ards; notwithstanding that we may not coincide 
with all his religious beliefs, his discussions on 
social reform stand the greatest light which in 
this field has so far been manifested in this or 
perhaps any land. 

The works of Channing constitute a mountain 
of precious ore for the reformer to mine and to 
fashion into the times and the institutions in the 
midst of which we dwell. One cannot but regret 
that the great volume of his rare inspirations and 
instructions, dealing in part with the identical 
problems in which we are now involved, are not 

[76] 



William Ellery Channing 



studied by at least those who are the natural 
molders of a worthy public opinion. For it was 
as no mere zealot that Channing approached the 
subject of social reform, but as a highly enlight- 
ened and broad-minded Christian, and from the 
great outlook of religion, of which, to him, 
reform was the natural and necessary outcome. 
He was the introducer of that idea which now 
so widely prevails in this country and which is 
rapidly gaining momentum — that religion and 
reform are radically and inseparably connected 
— that the community has a claim upon the 
church as well as has the individual — that it 
must labor for the uplifting of the people as well 
as for the salvation of separate souls. Indeed, 
the great message which Channing has for the 
world is of the inherent dignity and worth of 
man. This is the keynote of his works. Many 
entertain the erroneous idea that it was as a con- 
troversialist, attached to certain unpopular theo- 
logical doctrines, that he acquired his influence 
and fame, but this was a small and it may be 
said an insignificant portion of his endeavor, 
which was above all to exalt humanity in every 
sphere of life and on the basis of Christian faith 
and practice. The race never had a more 

[77] 



William Ellery Channing 



devoted friend than Channing, nor one more 
indefatigable in his labors for its improvement, 
not only spiritually but in every practical line. 
While he would soar in his sermons and essays 
on the theme of a purified and ennobled human- 
ity, his mind was capable of exercising itself in 
prosaic plans for the alleviation of the moral 
evils and physical sufferings which prevailed in 
his own town. These items from his journal 
(1803-1814) will illustrate his concern for the 
welfare of his townspeople : 

" Things to be done in town : Comfortable houses to 
be let cheap for the poor. Innocent and improving amuse- 
ments. Interesting works to be circulated among them. 
Associations among mechanics for mutual support, if 
reduced. Complete course of instruction for youth 
designed for active life. * * * How much capacity 
there is in the poorer classes of knowledge and affection ! 
Why is ,it not developed? Is not the social order bad? 
Cannot all the capacities of all classes be called 
forth? * * * 

" What can be done to exalt the poor and ignorant 
from a life of sense to an intellectual, moral and religious 
life ? * * * Let the poor be my end l * * * Immi- 
grants : A society of advice. They are subjects of specu- 
lation, exposed to unprincipled men. They want direc- 
tion, friends. Keep them out of the way of designing 
people." 

[781 



William Ellery Channing 



These brief and spontaneous entries reveal 
even at the beginning of his ministry the humani- 
tarian instincts which governed his entire life, 
and they exhibit also how he anticipated schemes 
now in operation for the benefit of the poor and 
unfortunate. 

Though Channing was eminently of a spiritual 
disposition, it is a singular fact that instead of 
being absorbed in a devotional frame of mind, 
practically all his concern was for the well-being 
of his f ellowmen in the present life — for their 
prosperity, materially and intellectually, as well 
as religiously. In this work he was tireless, 
never wavering; though handicapped by ill 
health, ever projecting new plans and oppressed 
by the feeling that only a small portion of his 
message had been communicated ; ever watching, 
waiting, hoping for a better day for humanity. 

This ardent love of men and desire for their 
welfare was expressive of his leading religious 
belief: that the Atonement was not for the 
redemption of the soul absolutely, but was 
designed to be the " quickener of heroic virtue " 
and not a " substitute for it." From this idea 
he derived a determination to occupy his talents 
in labors of reform and humanitarianism, thus 



[79 



William Ellery Channing 



placing himself in opposition to the generally 
prevailing theological view, and constituting the 
man here and now, in all his conditions and rela- 
tions, as more to be considered and helped than 
in exclusively preparing him for Heaven, being 
of the opinion that Paradise is gained largely 
as men fulfill their obligations to their fellows 
here and in this life. 

Channing was one of the distinguished line of 
humanists, who from the day of Socrates, have 
asserted the preeminent value and dignity of 
man as man and who have labored to advance the 
race in mind, body and soul. He was, indeed, 
the pioneer in America of a great and neglected 
department of thought and enterprise: philan- 
thropy, as associated with the religious sanction 
and dependent upon it for its fullest develop- 
ment. Many in this country had championed 
philanthropic principles and projects in a merely 
fraternal spirit, but it remained for Channing 
to teach with fervid eloquence and literary grace 
that the privilege and concern of Christians was 
to cultivate this field as a religious duty. He 
opened the way for the Transcendentalists and 
their great teacher, Emerson, with whom he sus- 
tained friendly relations and to whom he afiforded 

[80] 



William Ellery C banning 



important hints which were employed by that 
prophet of the Brook Farm cult. 

Concerning the extent to which we are in- 
debted to Channing for the advances made since 
his day in reform and philanthropy, we have no 
way of determining definitely what his influence 
has been, — it can be computed no better than 
the refreshing power of the dew and rain of 
heaven; but we may be assured that the teach- 
ings which were breathed into the world from his 
sanctified and persuasive personality are being 
to this day communicated and recommunicated 
throughout the world. While his name has 
become almost wholly disconnected from the 
ideas which he introduced or advanced, their 
influence has been infinitely multiplied. 

Channing's ministry preceded and fell within 
the bounds of that greatest of all philanthropic 
periods, — the middle third of the nineteenth 
century. And it is interesting to speculate on 
the extent to which his labors contributed to the 
developments in this pregnant space of time, 
which saw the curse of slavery rid from prac- 
tically the entire civilized world and beheld many 
public wrongs abolished and numerous beneficial 
institutions and inventions introduced. With 

[81] 



William Ellery Channing 



these movements, and all the reforms realized in 
the period referred to, he was in enthusiastic 
accord and he advocated them, either definitely 
or in the general spirit of his work. 

As stated by himself in the introduction to his 
works, Channing's most prominent principles 
were, " First : A high estimate of human nature ;" 
Second: "A reverence for liberty, for human 
rights;" and Third: Opposition to war, which he 
looked upon " with a horror which no words can 
express. " 

These were the ideas which were uppermost in 
his mind and which repeatedly recur in a multi- 
tude of phases, for the author was obsessed with 
these germinal conceptions of his religious and 
philanthropic teachings. All his reasonings and 
persuasions are baptized and beautified with 
fervent piety and unwavering faith in God and 
man, and by a reverent love of the race. 

In no other portion of his works, perhaps, are 
his wonderful gifts as a pleader for humanity 
so adequately exhibited as in his " Remarks on 
the Character and Writings of Fenelon." The 
great French divine, a man remarkable for piety, 
refinement and love for humanity, was greatly 
admired by Channing and he professed to make 

[82] 



William Ellery Channing 



him his model; accordingly, this essay has the 
quality of a work of love, having in it many 
magnificent and beautiful passages wherein the 
author shows to the best advantage, both as to 
his thoughts and as regards his literary qualifica- 
tions. His principal biographer, William H. 
Channing, a nephew, says: "It is in the notice 
of Fenelon, however, that what is most charac- 
teristic of Dr. Channing appeared. In countless 
little strokes and touches throughout that paper, 
he sketched his own likeness with a fidelity which 
no second hand will ever rival; and the almost 
angelic ideal of piety there given was an uncon- 
scious portrait of the beauty of his own holiness." 
Channing began his ministry as pastor of the 
Federal Street Congregational church, Boston, 
an obscure and small society worshiping in an 
unattractive building. The edifice, however, 
enjoyed an honorable history, for in it the State 
convention which ratified the national constitu- 
tion met in 1788, the church and street deriving 
their names from that event. The young minis- 
ter had declined an invitation to become the 
pastor of a larger society in Boston, feeling that 
his condition of health was unequal to the task. 
But so gifted did he prove as a preacher that 

[83] 



William Ellery C banning 



large numbers were soon drawn to his little 
church, making it necessary in a few years to 
erect a large building for the accommodation of 
the many who came to hear him. Of this church 
Channing remained the pastor till his death in 
1842. From the beginning of his ministry his 
sermons were characterized by the element that 
he made prominent throughout his career: the 
removal of religious truth from the closet and 
the sect and from the exclusive individual profit 
of the communicant, and the carrying of it into 
action in the common affairs of life for the bene- 
fit of all the people in every walk and every 
occupation. 

At this time Boston was a city of only 25,000 
population, its streets paved with cobble stones 
and lighted with oil lamps. The social and 
religious atmosphere of the place was cold, con- 
servative and puritanical, in which the humane 
and hopeful teachings of Channing came as a 
light in the darkness; as a new evangel come 
down to delight and instruct the earth. A man in 
Wisconsin was so carried away with his works 
that he copied every one of them that he might 
have them for his own. 

[84] 



William Ellery Channing 



In common with all clergymen and literary- 
workers, Channing derived inspirations and 
germs of thought from the writings of gifted 
authors. He was a wide and attentive reader 
upon whom books exerted a profound influence, 
but into the ideas he gleaned he infused the pow- 
ers of his own energetic and magnetic person- 
ality, so that what before was comparatively raw 
material emerged from the alembic of his fertile 
brain and fervent heart as silver and gold and 
precious gems. For he was a literary artist, one 
who knew thoroughly the craft of framing, 
balancing and disposing of sentences, and thus 
the current of his discourses and essays runs on 
with the beauty and power of a river of pure 
delight. 

Yet Channing in physical appearance was in- 
significant, short and diminutive, pale and hol- 
low-cheeked, with dark circles around his eyes, 
evidencing the permanent ill health which he had 
contracted in his young manhood from a too 
great application to a conscientious study of 
theology. Insomnia, dyspepsia and a variety of 
nervous complaints were his constant com- 
panions, singly or combined. His eyes, however, 
were a redeeming feature, large, luminous and 

[85] 



William Ellery Channing 



expressive, with their " solemn fire," while upon 
his face when preaching their beamed an expres- 
sion of unearthly beauty. He was the greatest 
American preacher of his day, an orator superbly 
gifted, one who moved deeply all who sat under 
his pulpit. His preaching has been described as 
"pure soul uttering itself in thought, clear and 
strong." The leading feature of his life-teach- 
ing was ever present in these rhapsodical 
sermons ; the undertone of a " pervading human- 
ity " could always be discerned. There was in 
his voice a winning persuasiveness, and in the 
grace and power of his delivery his congrega- 
tion forgot the inferior and enfeebled aspect of 
his physical presence, absorbed in the splendid 
flow of his eloquence. 

There are certain limitations which inhere in 
the character and works of Channing, which, 
though they do not detract from his merits, 
should be mentioned in order that a true estima- 
tion of him may be obtained. In all his sermons, 
addresses and writings there are evident poetic 
tendencies, and a disposition to deal in generali- 
ties and to advocate theories, avoiding logical 
discussion. He was not a man to engage in the 
prosaic occupation of the practical reformer and 

[86] 



William Ellery Charming 



philanthropist, for he was wanting in that fellow- 
feeling for the individual and common humanity 
which leads men into the actual doing of altruis- 
tic offices. He was by choice a recluse, preferring 
to dwell with his books and meditations rather 
than to mingle in amiable converse with his 
fellows, and it was only by positive effort that he 
schooled himself to have a part in social cus- 
toms. The elements of geniality and humor are 
strikingly absent from his works, and he seems 
to soar in too high a sphere of thought and pur- 
pose to admit of the ordinary human amenities 
which are employed by most of those who seek 
to influence public opinion. 

Again, the reader will look in vain through 
Channing's works for evidences of high scholar- 
ship and will find no great profundity of thought, 
but on every page he will recognize the impress 
of his wonderfully influential personality and be 
entranced with the beautiful piety and persuasive 
leadings of his ideas, all clothed in a literary style 
which for limpid, refined expression and quiet, 
unobtrusive energy has no superior in English 
literature. 

But Channing gained more perhaps by his 
inaptitude than he lost, for as a prophet address- 

[87] 



William Ellery C banning 



ing all times and all peoples, his works are 
stronger by absence of the personal and familiar 
elements, and by the catholicity and dignity of his 
writings commend themselves to the more intelli- 
gent, to whom they most strongly appeal. As 
Shelley is the poet's poet, so Channing is the 
writer's writer, the clergyman's clergyman, and 
the reformer's reformer. 

He died at Bennington, Vt., on Sunday, Octo- 
ber 2, 1842. It had been his custom to take 
vacations of travel that his health might be in- 
vigorated, and while on one of these journeys 
he was taken ill there of typhoid fever and died 
at the Walloomsac Inn, still a hotel, where he was 
a guest. 

The poet Whittier eulogizes Channing in the 
following verses: 

Not vainly did old poets tell, 

Nor vainly did old genius paint 
God's great and crowning miracle, — 

The hero and the saint ! 

For even in a faithless day 

Can we our sainted ones discern, 
And feel while with them on the way, 

Our hearts w,ithin us burn. 

[88] 



William Ellery C banning 



And thus the common tongue and pen 

Which, world-wide, echo Channing's fame, 

As one of Heaven's anointed men, 
Have sanctified his name. 

No bars of sect or clime were felt, — 

The Babel strife of tongues had ceased, — 

And at one common altar knelt 
The Quaker and the priest. 



Where is the victory of the grave? 

What dust upon the spirit lies ? 
God keeps the sacred life He gave,— 

The prophet never dies! 



[39] 



HONEST JENNY LIND 



During Jenny Lind's stay in this country in 
1850-52, she became acquainted with Mr. 
Nathaniel P. Willis, the popular prose writer 
and poet, and a man of thorough culture, who in 
several visits to Europe had mingled in the most 
exclusive society of its capitals. While the 
Swedish singer was in New York he saw much 
of her and came to enjoy the favor of her friend- 
ship, a boon which he acknowledged by writing 
and publishing her biography in 1851. Though 
Willis was an author who aimed generally at 
merely light and superficial effects, he became 
deeply impressed not only with Miss Lind's 
vocal accomplishments, but particularly with the 
originality and brightness of her intellect and 
the noble sincerity of her character. She stirred 
to life within him the deeper and better springs 
of his nature, and in his book may be read what 
are perhaps the most discerning, illuminating and 
satisfying estimations that have been written of 
the mind and character of this gifted artist. He 
says: "After once having seen her, the worst 

[90] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



man's heart, we sincerely believe, drops to its 
knees on hearing but the whisper of her name. 
* * * Through the angel of rapt music, as 
through the giver of queenly bounties, is seen 
honest Jenny Lind." 

It has seemed to me as I have studied the life 
of Jenny Lind, that this word " honest " most 
happily characterizes the underlying foundation 
of her wonderful career. Through the space of 
her preparation, beginning at the age of nine 
years, she was a diligent student of the arts of 
singing and acting, ever striving to attain to her 
ideal and surmounting with admirable courage 
every obstacle, until she stood at the head of her 
profession. And though the things she dealt 
with were imaginary and artificial, she yet main- 
tained in the glare of fame and in the midst of 
adulations such as few have ever received, a 
beautiful simplicity and sincerity of character, 
and a soul rich in goodness and abounding 
charity. She despised sham and pretense, cared 
not for the superficial and transitory street 
demonstrations, but preferred the quiet of seclu- 
sion and the few tried ones from whom she might 
derive sympathy and strength. She made a won- 
derful name for herself, but she honestly earned 



[91] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



it by years of toil and labors that were never 
remitted. Every performance was prepared for 
with anxious care; on every occasion she gave 
the best that she had; and, better than all, she 
threw into her work her own sincere and unique 
individuality, so that in her singing there 
breathed out over the silent multitude something 
strangely moving, and which her listeners never 
forgot. 

It was because she was honest that she 
abandoned the stage in the zenith of her fame 
and with wealth flowing abundantly into her 
coffers; for she heard the call of her womanly 
heart, of the home and the domestic side of her 
nature, and though she did not consider the stage 
unworthy of her, she felt that, with all its fever 
of excitement and nights of fiction, it was 
dragging her away from nature and nature's 
God. She forfeited much — the magnificence, 
the romance, the golden store and the glorious 
applause — but she gained the peace she had so 
long coveted, and the quiet fireside of home, and 
the independent life. Though the art world was 
disappointed and in some instances censorious 
because of her decision, the people realized the 
worthiness of it and accorded her their unlimited 

[921 



Honest Jenny Lind 



love and honor ; and, while she sang no more in 
the great operas, the lullabies for her children 
were perhaps a more soul-satisfying employ- 
ment, and their cooing voices sweeter than any 
applause of thousands. She had been honest 
with herself, and honesty had its reward. 

The life-story of Jenny Lind is one of the 
most fascinating in the literature of biography. 
She was born in Stockholm, Sweden, October 6, 
1820. Her father, Niclas Jonas Lind, was a man 
of amiable disposition, fond of music of a popu- 
lar and convivial nature, and derived a moderate 
income from the teaching of languages and serv- 
ice as an accountant. Her mother was a woman 
of decision of character w r ho aided in the sup- 
port of the family by keeping a day-school for 
girls. Niclas Lind was but twenty-two years 
of age when Jenny was born to him, which in 
a measure accounts, perhaps, for the straits into 
w 7 hich his family came, Jenny being sent while a 
babe to be cared for by a household located fifteen 
miles out of town, where she remained for three 
years. It is said that at the age of twenty months 
she was able to sing the airs of the songs of 
Sweden. Though her remembrance of this 
experience in the country must have been very 

F93] 



Honest Jenny hind 



indistinct, she throughout her career was fond 
of pastoral life and rural people, particularly 
delighting in birds, to which she would listen for 
hours and observe attentively. In her years 
of maturity she said: "I sing after no one's 
method — only as far as I am able, after that 
of the birds; for their Master was the only one 
who came up to my demands for truth, clear- 
ness and expression. " Apropos of her love of 
birds : In the summer of 1851, Jenny having sung 
in Utica, New York, improved the opportunity 
of visiting Trenton Falls, not many miles from 
the city and then a famed place of resort. The 
following episode of the trip is given by George 
William Curtis, he having heard it from a boy 
who rode with the driver: 

"As we came back we passed a little wood, and Jenny 
stopped the carriage and stepped out with the rest of the 
party and went into the wood. It was toward sunset and 
the wood was beautiful. She walked about a little and 
picked up flowers, and sang like to herself as if it were 
pleasant. By-and-by she sat down upon a rock and began 
to sing aloud. But before she stopped a little bird came 
and sat upon a bough close by us. And when Jenny Lind 
had done, he began to sing and shout away like she 
did. While he was singing she looked delighted, and 
when he stopped she sang again, and oh ! it was beautiful, 

[94] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



sir. But the little bird wouldn't give it up, and he sang 
again, but not until she had done. Then Jenny Lind sang 
as well as ever she could. Her voice seemed to fill the 
woods all up w,ith music, and when it was over, the little 
bird was still awhile, but tried it again in a few moments. 
He couldn't do it, sir. He sang very bad, and then the 
foreign gentleman with Jenny laughed, and they all came 
back to the carriage." 

To her dying day she was a lover of birds, 
whose songs she strove to equal, and to whom, 
perhaps, was due her famous " shake," and the 
compass and facility of her glorious voice, which 
made her known throughout Europe and America 
as " The Swedish Nightingale." The lark was 
her emblem and his image was carved over the 
door of her home. 

At three years of age Jenny astonished her 
family by drumming on the piano the fanfare 
that she had heard from the military bugler in 
the street, and at nine her vocal abilities led to 
her being accepted as a pupil in the school of 
music connected with the Royal Theater of 
Stockholm. The Linds were Lutherans, and 
though in needy circumstances, had scruples 
about granting their child to the care of the 
theater, which in effect dedicated her to a life on 

7 [95] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



the boards; but when the mother and little 
daughter were ascending the broad steps of the 
playhouse, and the former hesitated and seemed 
ready to turn back, Jenny tugged at her hand 
and led her on. Her trial proving satisfactory 
she was accepted by the director of the theater, 
who agreed to provide instruction in singing and 
acting, equip her with a liberal education and 
assume the expense of her maintenance in the 
home of her parents. The years of her child- 
hood, however, were unhappy, owing to the 
irregularity of the domestic fortunes of her 
father and mother; she was much alone, left to 
entertain herself as best she could, employing 
many of the long hours in singing, a diversion 
she practiced at " every step." Indeed, it was 
while she was singing beautifully to her cat that 
she attracted the attention of a maid employed by 
a dancer in the theater — an humble beginning 
that yet led to her introduction to that institu- 
tion and to all her future career. 

She was ever a diligent student, and so faithful 
was she now that she made good advancement in 
voice culture and dramatic art, piano, French, 
drawing, etc., and became eventually liberally 
educated and accomplished, particularly profi- 

[961 



Honest Jenny hind 



cient as a pianist, which skill in after years was 
admired when she would frequently sing in 
private recitals, playing her own accompani- 
ments. At the age of seventeen, having appeared 
many times since her tenth year on the stage 
and in private parlors, gaining considerable rec- 
ognition, she was assigned the role of Alice in 
the opera of " Robert de Normandie," in which 
character her singing won for her an increased 
admiration. On March 7th of the following 
year, (1838) occurred one of the greatest events 
of her life, her appearance as Agatha in the opera 
" Freischutz," a character which had for some 
time deeply appealed to her and to which she had 
devoted careful study, hoping that sometime she 
might have the opportunity of representing it on 
the stage. It was revealed to her at the rehearsal 
that her rendering was effective for professional 
auditors, when the orchestra laid down their 
instruments and applauded her, but it remained 
for the open performance to show that she had 
become an artist of superior ability, for the 
audience accorded her an ovation. This was 
the first revelation that Jenny had experienced 
of the wonderful gifts which she possessed; to 
use her own expression, " I had found my power. 

[97] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



* * * I arose in the morning one creature, and I 
went to bed another/' Stockholm, the people 
said, had never enjoyed such a demonstration of 
dramatic and lyric genius as had been given them 
by the girl that had been born and bred in their 
very midst. Steadily advancing, at the age of 
twenty she was appointed court singer of the 
Royal Theater of Stockholm and offered an 
engagement of three years at a stated salary ; but 
feeling the promptings of genius for a yet higher 
attainment in her art, she resolved to decline the 
proposition and seek the instructions of Signor 
Garcia, of Paris, the vocal teacher of the century. 
In order to obtain funds to defray the expense 
of a year's training she made a concert tour, 
accompanied by her father, and with the pro- 
ceeds went to Paris in the summer of 1841. On 
her first trial before the great maestro she failed 
pitifully, owing to the fatigue of her voice and 
the nervousness with which she was ever beset 
when venturing on important occasions. Her 
voice was lost, he told her with cruel frankness, 
and that it would be useless to attempt to do any- 
thing for her; but Jenny pleaded tearfully for 
another trial, and Signor Garcia, sympathizing 
with her grief and disappointment, consented to 

\98] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



hear her again after a protracted rest for her 
voice. At the end of the specified time she came 
again and was accepted as a pupil. Though she 
had gained a national fame in Sweden, she was 
ignorant of the refined technicalities of her art 
which the maestro had to communicate, but 
during a course of lessons extending through a 
period of ten months, she acquired by diligent 
application all that he had to teach her. While 
in Paris she met Meyerbeer, who was pleased 
with her singing and remained her friend to 
aid her in the upward path she was taking to 
a higher distinction. Her friends in Paris con- 
sidered a while the proposition that she should 
sing in the Grand Opera House of that city, and 
a trial was made of her powers in the vacant and 
unlighted auditorium, with Meyerbeer and a few 
others present; but though her performance, 
notwithstanding her nervous apprehension was 
brilliant, it was deemed prudent, owing to the 
jealousy which her public appearance would 
excite, to abandon the venture. She never sang 
publicly in Paris, although after her European 
fame had been established she had proposals 
from that capital, for the reason that she believed 
that her personality and singing, which appealed 

[99] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



primarily to the better impulses and higher senti- 
ments, would not be appreciated and sustained in 
that metropolis. " The more I think of it," she 
says, " the more I am convinced that I am not 
for Paris, nor Paris for me." 

She returned to Stockholm in August, 1842, 
where she appeared in a number of performances 
and astonished the city with the improvement 
she had made. Her voice, which was a brilliant 
soprano, had developed in power, clearness and 
sympathy, with a magnetic individuality which 
rendered it irresistible. Her compass was from B 
below the staff, to G on the fourth line above, a 
range of two and five-eighths octaves, and 
throughout these limits her voice control was 
perfect, the high notes being rendered in the 
same rich, full tones as those of the lower. By 
nature her voice was not flexible, but by incessant 
practice she achieved a phenomenal elasticity 
which was a marked feature of her artistic skill, 
being able to accomplish all transitions with ease 
and certainty. Every note was clear and precise, 
and every syllable, irrespective of what language 
she might be singing, was plainly enunciated, 
while her breathing had been so carefully trained 
that she was able to take brief and frequent 

[100] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



inhalations unobserved by the audience and to 
pour out melody with apparently no exertion. A 
rule that she had set for herself was to appear 
always of a pleasant countenance and to avoid 
contortions of the features, which precautions, 
together with her almost divinely transfigured 
face as it responded to the varying sentiments 
of her themes, constituted her a singer of 
unbounded popularity. 

Copenhagen now invited her, and though 
accepting with characteristic dread, she charmed 
the people and won their hearts. While here she 
devoted herself for the first to that work of 
charity which she ever after cultivated, by giv- 
ing a benefit performance in aid of unfortunate 
children. She was moved by the success of her 
effort, and exclaimed tearfully: "It is beautiful 
that I can sing so ! " She appreciated the value 
of her lyric gift and meditated upon it daily, con- 
sidering that she should employ it well, as another 
day might not be granted for its beneficent 
exercise. 

The rise of Jenny Lind from now on was 
phenomenal in its rapidity as she went from city 
to city, until her fame was heard in every part 
of Europe. Not only did she gain public renown, 

[101] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



but individuals of all ranks of society, having 
met her, were warm in her commendation, while 
crowned heads and men and women of the high- 
est distinction were proud to be numbered among 
her acquaintances and friends. Musical com- 
posers of the highest rank were loud in her 
praise and delighted to indite lyrical works for 
her rendering, Mendelssohn being particularly 
devoted to her as a woman of rare personality 
and as an artist of astonishing gifts. The two 
were mutually attracted through the harmony of 
their musical and aesthetic tastes, and would sit 
for hours conversing upon the topics in which 
they were so deeply interested. His death in 
1847 fell as a heavy calamity upon the sensitive 
soul of Jenny, and for the space of two years 
she was unable to sing his songs on account of 
the sorrow that would overwhelm her when she 
would attempt to render them. He had been the 
most helpful and highly valued of her friends 
and had said of her : "I have never in my life 
met so noble, so true and real an art nature as 
Jenny Lind is. I have never found natural 
gifts, study and sympathetic warmth united in 
such a degree ; and although one or other quality 
may have appeared more prominently in this or 

[102] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



the other case, I do not believe that they have 
ever been found united in such potency. * * * 
There will not be born in a whole century another 
being so gifted as she." 

In 1844, through Meyerbeer's influence, she was 
called to Berlin, and after appearing for a time 
in secondary operatic roles she leapt suddenly 
into high favor by her rendering of the char- 
acter of Alice, in "Robert de Normandie," thus 
displacing the reigning prima donna and singing 
leading parts from thence to the close of her 
engagement. Two years later she sang in 
Vienna, winning a signal triumph at her first 
appearance in " Norma/' and was called before 
the curtain sixteen times, though the event had 
been preceded by three days of tortuous appre- 
hension. This is one of the many indications 
which may be found along the path of her 
career, — that in the midst of her dazzling success 
she never lost the simplicity and childlikeness of 
her original nature; and hence, the wandering 
among strangers and the continual excitement 
and the toil of preparation had become a weari- 
ness, and she longed to escape from it all and 
dwell in peace and quietness. As early as the 
Berlin engagement she had resolved to retire 

r 103] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



from the stage, and this purpose is several times 
expressed in her letters. She wrote on December 
1, 1845: "I have the old homesickness all the 
same ! And my only wish is to get into quietude 
away from the stage. And a year hence I go 
home, and remain at home, my friends ! Ah ! how 
I shall enjoy life! Ah! peace is the best that 
there is ! " 

The secret of this aversion to the stage may be 
found in the noble nature of this extraordinary 
woman, whose modesty was embarrassed by the 
professional aspects of a prima donna's career ; — 
the furore, the flaunting publicity, and the mer- 
chandising of her art. She was, indeed, greater 
than her singing, over which there ever presided 
and in which there ever mingled, a soul of un- 
common intellectual gifts, of deep and fervent 
religious convictions, and all combined with a 
simple and childlike nature which no plaudits of 
renown were ever able to displace. Her songs 
were the beautiful pinions upon which the soul 
of Jenny Lind flew to the bosom of every listener, 
making there its nest, while the auditor felt 
struggling to life within him an angel which had 
never been known to exist. 



[104] 



Honest Jenny hind 



In person she was beneath the average height ; 
five feet, three and one-half inches, with a slight, 
symmetrical frame, and finely molded hands and 
arms. Her features were plain, nose wide, with 
thin nostrils, blue " dove-like " eyes, pale com- 
plexion and blonde hair. Her countenance is 
said to have been remarkably responsive to every 
shade of thought, taking on every changing emo- 
tion from mirth to grief and assuming under the 
inspiration of her themes an almost supernatural 
beauty. The vocabulary has been well nigh 
exhausted in attempts to portray the rare mobility 
of the countenance of Jenny Lind : " Delicious 
transformations;" " full of animation; " ' ever- 
changing mirror of the soul;" " illumination 
from within; " " transfigured in singing, and her 
face shone as an angers." Her nature was, 
indeed, a strange blending of many elements, 
resulting in a unique and charming personality 
which alone constituted her a woman of uncom- 
mon attractiveness, and there were those who 
esteemed it a greater , pleasure to meet her and 
hear her converse than to listen to her singing. 
Though of a happy disposition, she was ac- 
quainted with that undefined sense of sadness 
so frequent among those of gifted parts, and 

[105] 



Honest Jenny hind 



wrote : " When I am alone, you have no idea how 
different I am — so happy ; and yet so melancholy 
that the tears are rolling down my cheeks 
unceasingly." 

Wherever she appeared in the cities of Europe, 
this quiet and retiring woman created enthusiasm 
through the sheer force of her admirable per- 
sonality, reinforced by her artistic singing. The 
sedate English people proved no exception when 
she first sang in London in 1847, the populace 
becoming almost ridiculous in the exhibition of 
their devotion; for, as some one has said, the 
Englishman likes to have his art manifested in 
flesh and blood, and that was peculiarly Jenny's 
forte ; she exemplified the highest range of artis- 
tic excellence, and associated it at the same time 
with her lovable, unique and honest nature. 
They understood her from the hour she came 
upon the boards of the theater, and from the 
Queen to the common people, among whom her 
name became a household word, all cherished 
her more deeply than in any other land she had 
visited except her own country. In London she 
appeared eighty-one times, more than in any 
other city except Stockholm, and here occurred 
the great event of her life, her retirement from 

[106] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



the stage at the full tide of her fame, on May 10, 
1849. England she made the home of her adop- 
tion; there she died, and there she was buried. 
She was called by the Germans, " The Priestess 
of Art;" but the English, and afterwards the 
American people characterized her as, ' The 
Priestess of Nature." She responded gladly to 
the overtures of these two nations, while the 
religious consecration of England, contrasting so 
markedly with the continent, made a deep impres- 
sion upon her and led her to the study of the 
English musical specialty, the oratorio, to the 
singing of which she had been encouraged by 
Mendelssohn. 

Before turning for the time being from her Eng- 
lish experiences, I would dwell a moment upon her 
private life in London for a period of two years, 
prior to her leaving the stage. She made her 
home during this time in a residence in the out- 
skirts of the city, which she had leased furnished, 
and with the accessories of servants and coach- 
man. Upon the family of the latter she bestowed 
much attention, caring for the baby and teaching 
the older children. While ladies of the nobility 
would have been delighted to enjoy her hospital- 
ity, she would be with the coachman's children 

[107] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



in the haymow, which was her favorite resort, 
delighting herself with this humble employment 
rather than in listening to empty words of praise 
and idol-worship as a prima donna. While ab- 
sent and singing in the cities of the kingdom, 
she wrote daily letters to this family, which were 
expressed " with a tenderness of broken English 
which was as touching as it was curious," evidenc- 
ing the lowly simplicity and the unaffected good- 
ness of Jenny Lind. It was in a sense her home, 
and that word in her wanderings and loneliness 
had become precious, and it is significant of this 
state of mind that her encore was frequently, 
" Sweet Home." 

Another interesting feature of this period was 
her engagement in 1848 to Captain Claudius 
Harris, serving in the army of India. He fol- 
lowed her from city to city in her tours, and there 
came to be a strong attachment between the two. 
Jenny seems to have been delighted with the pros- 
pect and said she desired to live quietly there- 
after and " to be near trees, and water, and a 
cathedral. I am tired, body and soul; but my 
soul most !" But the engagement was abandoned 
on account of her refusal to agree to the prop- 
osition of Captain Harris to forego singing in 

[108] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



public and to make him the custodian of her in- 
come. The decision was creditable, but the affair 
left a deep sadness upon her. She wrote : " It 
has passed over my soul like a beneficent storm 
which has broken down all the hard shell of my 
being, and has set free many dear plants to find 
their way to the dear sun! So that now I am 
always clothed in green like the fairest hope! 
And I see quite clearly how infinitely much there 
is for me to do with my life ; and I have only one 
prayer, that I may yet live long, and that in the 
evening of my life I may be able to show a pure 
soul to God." 

Having been engaged by Mr. P. T. Barnum to 
give one hundred and fifty concerts in the United 
States at one thousand dollars an appearance, 
Jenny Lind arrived at New York on Sunday, 
September 1, 1850. America at that time was 
considered by Europe as decidedly provincial ; art 
and music had been but little cultivated, while 
literature, led by Irving, Bryant and Cooper, was 
but beginning to attract foreign attention. The 
people, immersed in the tide of practical affairs 
incident to the development of a new country, 
were for the most part unacquainted with aes- 
thetics, and outside of musical and editorial 



[109] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



circles, had scarcely heard of Jenny Lind. Mr. 
Barnum, however, had laid himself under obli- 
gations to the extent of $187,500, deposited with 
London bankers and subject to the order of Miss 
Lind, though financiers of New York believed 
that he had involved himself in bankruptcy. But 
convinced by his keen discernment that Jenny's 
gift of song, with her nobility of character and 
munificent charities, would render her popular, 
Mr. Barnum inaugurated an elaborate and ex- 
tended campaign of advertising, for which a long 
experience in the entertainment business had 
made him an expert. No foreign celebrity, more- 
over, in the flush of fame had heretofore con- 
sidered it worth while to appear before American 
audiences, a fact which operated to awaken in- 
terest in Jenny, who in her democratic and gen- 
erous spirit, had glady embraced the opportunity 
of coming among us, and had declared that the 
proceeds of the tour should be devoted to chari- 
table purposes. 

Her first appearance, at Castle Garden, New 
York, September 11, 1850, was a great artistic 
and financial success; the most notable musical 
event that has ever occurred in this country, and 
it marked the beginning here of Jenny's munifi- 

[110] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



cent gifts to charity. Her share of the net pro- 
ceeds of the first New York concert, $10,000, 
went to twelve of such institutions in that city, 
as also did her proportion of the second. When 
she was led to the foot-lights on that perhaps most 
momentous night of her career, she beheld the 
largest audience before whom she had ever ap- 
peared ; — five thousand refined and appreciative 
people, eager to behold and hear the famous prima 
donna who had won so great distinction through- 
out Europe; but what was their astonishment to 
see before them, instead of the stately and elabo- 
rately appareled person whom they had imagined, 
merely a pleasant-faced Swedish young woman, 
clad in simple white with a rose in her flaxen 
hair, and plainly agitated by the tremendous 
ovation which greeted her. " Casta Diva," a 
selection from the opera of " Norma," was her 
theme, and though the opening notes were some- 
what unsteady, she soon recovered herself and 
poured forth such wonderful rendering that the 
audience was carried away with enthusiasm, and 
ere the final passage had been completed, burst 
forth unrestrained and drowned out her closing 
notes in wild applause. Never has Castle Garden 
in its long and diversified career as Fort Clinton, 

s [in] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



auditorium, immigration station and aquarium, 
its present use, sheltered in its old walls so inter- 
esting and famous an event as when Jenny Lind 
with her angelic voice breathed for the first time 
on the American people the highest excellence of 
song. The musical critic of The Tribune said: 
" The charm lay not in any point, but rather in 
the inspired vitality, the hearty, genuine outpour- 
ing of the whole — the real and yet truly ideal 
humanity of her singing. . . . We have never 
heard tones that in their sweetness went so far. 
They brought the most distant and ill-seated 
auditor close to her." Daniel Webster, who was 
sitting in the middle of the front row of the 
balcony seems, however, not to have been much 
impressed and said, " Why doesn't she sing some 
of the mountain songs of her own land?" An 
usher, hearing the remark, carried the word be- 
hind the stage, and Jennie responded with one 
of the native, wild songs with which she had been 
familiar from childhood. Mr. Webster was 
visibly affected, and when the great singer had 
acknowledged the applause, she bowed especially 
to him, upon which the grand old colossus of 
American oratory arose and returned the compli- 

[112] 



Honest Jenny hind 



ment with all the grace and dignity which he alone 
could command. 

Mr. Barnum has given in his autobiography 
an interesting account of his associations with 
Jenny Lind in New York, at his home in Bridge- 
port, Connecticut, and during the tour to Havana, 
and eastern and southern cities of the country, 
and has left on record more really illuminative 
incidents connected with her than I have found 
in all other sources. Her charities were on a 
grand scale; — benefit performances in many 
cities, and princely gifts to associations and in- 
dividuals; $5,000 to a schoolmate living in Brook- 
lyn, to whose home she drove on two different 
occasions. Called upon by a Swedish domestic, 
she entertained her a long time, took her to the 
concert where she sang and sent her home in a 
carriage; at New Orleans, learning that a blind 
boy had come many miles to hear her, his ex- 
penses having been defrayed by a subscription 
that the young flute player might have his desire, 
she invited him to her rooms, sang for him, ac- 
companied him to her concerts and shared with 
him the contents of her purse. Her manner was 
animated and cheerful and she was fond of a 

[113] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



joke, when " her rich, musical voice would be 
heard ringing through the house." 

Mr. Barnum gives a dramatic description of her 
experience and well-earned triumph before her 
first Havana audience which, on account of the 
high prices of admission, hissed her as she came 
forward on the stage. Jenny, who as usual in 
first appearances was tremulous, immediately as- 
sumed a self-possessed and queenly attitude, and 
began singing in the most brilliant and beautiful 
manner of which she was capable, until the 
hostile house was lost in admiration and broke 
forth unanimously in splendid applause. Mr. 
Barnum says : " I cannot express what my feel- 
ings were as I watched this scene from the dress 
circle. Poor Jenny! I deeply sympathized with 
her when I heard that hiss. I, indeed, observed 
the resolute bearing which she assumed, but was 
apprehensive of the result. When I witnessed 
her triumph I could not restrain the tears of joy 
that rolled down my cheeks, and rushing through 
a private box I reached the stage just as she was 
withdrawing after the fifth encore. ' God bless 
you, Jenny, you have settled them!' I exclaimed. 
'Are you satisfied?' said she, throwing her arms 
around my neck. She, too, was crying with joy, 

[114] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



and never before did she look so beautiful in my 
eyes as on that evening." 

After the company returned from the South 
and were giving a series of concerts in New York 
City, certain meddlesome parties renewed their 
attempts to induce Miss Lind to endeavor to ob- 
tain from Mr. Barnum financial concessions, al- 
though before leaving the city on the tour he had 
liberally granted all she asked, as the returns 
from the concerts were much larger than had 
been anticipated. Mr. Barnum, rather than in- 
terrupt the amicable relations that had existed 
between them, at the ninety-third performance, 
which was given in Philadelphia, retired as mana- 
ger, he having granted Miss Lind in the beginning 
the privilege of cancelling the contract for a con- 
sideration, at the one hundredth concert, which 
she had notified him that she would do. He con- 
tinued, however, to maintain friendly relations 
with her, convinced that the unfortunate friction 
was due wholly to outside influences. But I 
learn from other sources that Jenny had limita- 
tions in the management of practical affairs, was 
of impulsive temper and immature judgment, and 
given to entertaining unwarrantably severe 
estimations of conduct; but these shortcomings, 

[115] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



which she was free to acknowledge, have been in 
almost every volume passed over by her biogra- 
phers, and have been dissolved and forgotten in 
the radiance of her artistic genius and inherent 
worth. 

The funds which she derived from her concerts 
here went entirely for charitable and educational 
purposes in Sweden and England. It is believed 
that she gave away during her life a half million 
of dollars. The gross receipts from the concerts 
given under Mr. Barnum's management were 
$712,161, of which the net income to Miss Lind 
was $176,675 and to Mr. Barnum, $350,000, the 
latter sum a not unreasonable proportion con- 
sidering the risk he assumed and the labor he 
expended. Under her own management Miss 
Lind gave several concerts, but lacking the aid 
of Mr. Barnum's genius and popularity as a 
manager, she seems not to have been very success- 
ful and admitted to him that she had been imposed 
upon in her dealings on the road. She had been 
joined in May, 1851, by Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, 
of Hamburg, son of a wealthy merchant of that 
city, and through the remainder of her concerts 
he served as her accompanist. They had been 
associated in musical pursuits in Europe, and 

[116] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



having congenial tastes and being devotedly at- 
tached, they were married in Boston on February 
5, 1852, and not long after sailed for Europe. 
Having made their home for five years in Dres- 
den, in 1858 the family settled permanently in 
England, making their residence in London, with 
a summer cottage in the Malvern Hills. She 
found peace and delight in her domestic life, and 
her children were a source of joy unspeakable, so 
that her time after her marriage was not con- 
siderably employed with concert work. She died 
resignedly after a lingering illness, passing away 
midst the rural scenes she loved, at her cottage, 
on November 2, 1887, rounding out a life of ex- 
traordinary success and usefulness, and maintain- 
ing to the last the magic sweetness of her voice 
and the lovable and noble traits of her character. 
Concerning Jenny Lind, while I read on and 
on, volume after volume, I became obsessed with 
the charm of her personality and genius, and 
wondered if in the midst of all her wealth and 
distinction she had forgotten the United States, 
the people of which had so idolized her in the 
years that were gone. And one day I found it 
recorded that at her death the Queen of England 
had sent a wreath of white flowers, and following 

[117] 



Honest Jenny Lind 



the statement of this royal acknowledgment of 
regard was the assurance that I had so greatly 
missed; it was remarked that " in accordance with 
her oft-expressed desire, the patch-work quilt, 
which the children of the United States gave her, 
was buried with her." Words cannot convey the 
emotion of gratitude which swept over me when 
I read this beautiful testimonial of her remem- 
brance of our shores and our people ; it was as if 
the gulf of the years had been bridged and Jenny 
Lind, with her " heavenly smile " and warm hand- 
clasp had visited me; and it is a cherished 
thought that today her dust is infolded by the 
gfift of a land that loved her in life, and to which 
she was true in her death. 

Thus have I plucked a few sprays from the 
evergreens that flourish along the path of " The 
Swedish Nightingale/' and having arranged them 
as best I could in a wreath, I place it now upon the 
shrine of " Honest Jenny Lind." 



[118] 



STEPHEN C. FOSTER 



Comparatively few people are acquainted in 
any manner with the life of Stephen C. Foster, 
and fewer still would be willing to admit that he 
was more than a mere writer of popular songs, 
and hence esteem him entitled to no great con- 
sideration. The ingratitude of the public con- 
cerning their song writers is remarkable; the 
song lives on, but the composer is generally for- 
gotten, living and dying without honor and in 
many cases in obscurity and poverty. Such was 
the experience of Foster, though he was preemin- 
ently the greatest of American song writers. 

Though his art was simple in its poetic phrase 
and musical construction, it was profound in its 
psychological, unexplainable elements which the 
greatest of lyric geniuses might in vain attempt 
to imitate, and it ever exercises a masterful in- 
fluence upon the race. It has been said that his 
melodies are adaptations of the old psalm and 
hymn tunes, perfectly moulded into simple words 
and brought into sentimental contact with the 
actual life of ordinary humanity. This accounts, 

[119] 



Stephen C. Foster 



if true, for the semi-religious atmosphere which 
inheres in the best and most lasting of his songs 
— and indefinably pure and sacred element which 
compels the attention and soothes the mind and 
chastens the heart, universally. 

From these considerations it is apparent that a 
song writer may become of real political signifi- 
cance and testify through his work for the say- 
ing, that the songs of a nation have a greater 
efficacy than its laws, and it requires but a brief 
study of Foster's life and times to discover that 
though unconsciously, he was in his day an im- 
portant factor in the fashioning of public policies 
and events. In the hour of his nativity, at 
Allegheny, Pa., on July 4, 1826, a salute was 
fired at the arsenal celebrating the fiftieth anni- 
versary of the Declaration of Independence, and 
those patriotic reverberations were among the 
first sounds which came to his infant ears. It 
was an appropriate demonstration to accompany 
the ushering into the world of a man who was 
destined with matchless beauty and pathos to ap- 
peal to the common heart of men in behalf of the 
oppressed in slavery. His influence was indirect, 
but the deep love and sympathy with which in 
exquisite song he depicted the homely joys and 

[120] 



Stephen C. Foster 



the tragic, lingering sorrows of the negro was a 
powerful aid to the anti-slavery movement. The 
life of Foster covered practically the years oc- 
cupied in the rise, development and decadence of 
that great diversory institution known as negro 
minstrelsy, and in these universally popular enter- 
tainments his songs were sung perennially 
throughout the country. Foster's work should 
have a place alongside of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the 
appearance of which was contemporaneous with 
the publication of his great negro lyrics. 

Stephen Collins Foster was of Irish or Scotch- 
Irish extraction, his grandfather having emi- 
grated to this country from the north of Ireland. 
His father, William B. Foster, was a man of 
prominence not only in Allegheny where he had 
served as mayor, but he had been a member of 
the Legislature and had occupied other places of 
trust and honor. Stephen's mother, Eliza Clay- 
land Tomlinson, was a descendant of the Clay- 
lands, a family of note, which had dwelt in Mary- 
land from the earliest colonial times, and in that 
State she had been reared. The boy grew up 
midst pleasant and affluent surroundings, the 
home having been a mansion in the suburbs of 
Pittsburgh, opposite Allegheny, and command- 

[121] 



Stephen C. Foster 



ing a view of the Allegheny Valley. Of a retiring 
disposition and lacking robustness of health, the 
youth avoided the sports and pastimes popular 
with boys of his age, and in the privacy of his 
home or in the woods and fields spent much of his 
time communing with his own thoughts and in 
the study of his favorite branches. He early 
evinced a taste and capacity for music, and at the 
age of seven years for the first time seeing a 
flageolet, was able in a few moments to play the 
familiar melodies with which he was acquainted. 
While attending school at Athens, Ohio, he wrote 
his first musical composition, The Tioga Waltz, 
and arranged it for four flutes. The piece was 
played at the public exercises of the seminary, the 
author having the first flute for his part. At 
this time Foster was but thirteen years of age. 

It was for the larger part to self instruction 
that he owed his education, and in this manner 
he acquired a good knowledge of German and 
French, became proficient on the piano, flute, 
guitar and banjo, studying carefully the works of 
the great masters. Among his accomplishments 
was an ability as an artist in water colors, which 
he seems not to have much cultivated. An amus- 
ing story is told of him in this connection. When 

[122] 



Stephen C. Foster 



his song, Oh ! Willie, We Have Missed You, was 
in course of publication, he drew a picture for the 
title page and submitted it to the printer, who, 
after examining: it exclaimed, "Oh! another 
comic song!" This experience permanently 
dampened his aspirations to shine as an artist. 

At the age of seventeen Foster went to Cincin- 
nati and was employed three years in the office of 
his brother, rendering satisfactory service but 
never forgetting his great passion and applying 
himself to musical composition in his leisure 
hours. But it was not until his return to Al- 
legheny that he scored his first real success in his 
chosen art, though his first song, Open Thy Lat- 
tice, Love, had been brought out two years 
previous by a Baltimore publisher. About the 
year 1844 he composed a song- entitled, Louisiana 
Belle, which became immediately popular 
throughout Pittsburgh, and this pronounced suc- 
cess encouraged him to introduce the ballads, 
Uncle Ned and O Susanna! both of which had 
an even greater appreciation, extending to dis- 
tant places, until a publisher asked the privilege 
of printing the songs, offering a fair compensa- 
tion. O Susanna brought the author $100, and 
from this success and favorable introduction 

[123] 



Stephen C. Foster 



Foster embarked upon his successful career as a 
song writer. 

Foster was of an affectionate, tender-hearted 
disposition, deeply sentimental and with a capac- 
ity for strong and lasting attachments. Towards 
his father and mother he cherished an uncom- 
mon devotion, and the death of the latter cast 
upon his mind a shade of melancholy which is 
reflected in his later songs and from which he 
was never able to recover. He formed in his 
youthful years an undying attachment to Miss 
Jane D. McDowell, daughter of Dr. McDowell, 
of Pittsburgh, and they were married on the 22J 
of July, 1850. He ever manifested a beautiful 
affection for his wife and his daughter Marian, 
his only child* In ten of his songs may be found 
the Christian name of his wife, " Jennie/' and in 
one of them she is but thinly disguised under the 
phrase, " Little Jennie Dow." Foster averred that 
it was Jennie McDowell who awoke in his soul 
the latent gift of song, and his favorite among his 
many compositions was, Jennie's Coming O'er the 
Green, as it reminded him of the happy days when 
he began to delight in her above all others. Their 
married life, though having a happy beginning, 
was very sad in the closing period of Foster's 



[124] 



Stephen C. Foster 



career, for during the last three years, which he 
spent in New York, he was without his family, 
a partial separation having taken place, though a 
correspondence was maintained between husband 
and wife. He never could be drawn into express- 
ing himself upon this subject, but the cause of 
the alienation was probably his convivial habits, 
which grew upon him and led him at last into a 
semi-vagabond existence. Opening a letter, he 
was observed to be in tears, the cause having been 
the words of his wife and the picture, with the 
missive, of his little daughter, and in a broken 
voice he expressed his grief that he was so un- 
worthy of those for whom he cherished so deep 
an affection. Foster struggled heroically with 
his besetting habit but in vain, and with cloud- 
ing genius and tarnished character he went the 
downward way. 

His songs had enormous sales, those of The 
Old Folks at Home or The Suwannee River hav- 
ing reached more than a half million copies, with 
his royalties upon it amounting to $15,000, while 
E. P. Cristy, of Cristy's Minstrels, gave him 
$500 for having his name appear on the title page 
of one edition of the song. His other most popu- 
lar songs enjoyed sales of from 75,000 to 150,000 

[125] 



Stephen C. Foster 



copies. He was a prolific song writer, his com- 
positions having aggregated 150 titles or more, 
about one-fourth of which were negro ballads. 
Not only did his songs spread to all parts of the 
world to be translated into the leading languages 
and to be cherished by the commonalty, but they 
have been rendered to delighted audiences of the 
highest culture by the master vocal artists from 
Jenny Lind to the present. Ole Bull and other 
musicians of distinction knew and loved him, and 
gladly taking his melodies elaborated and adorned 
them with their matchless art, while Washington 
Irving and other literary lights wrote him letters 
of commendation and congratulation. 

The circumstances and surroundings connected 
with his death were sad and deplorable. He was 
rooming at the American House, a cheap hotel, 
and from a fall there sustained a wound which 
bled so freely that he died a few days after the acci- 
dent on January 13, 1864. His wife and brother 
had been informed of his critical condition, but 
he died before their arrival. Having been under 
treatment in a common ward of Bellevue Hospital 
and being unidentified, his body was taken to the 
morgue ; but loving hands soon took his remains, 
and the devoted wife and the affectionate brother 

[126] 



Stephen C. Foster 



went with him to his native city. A significant 
fact connected with this sad journey was that the 
railroad company refused to accept pay for the 
transportation of Foster's body, a pathetic and 
eloquent expression of the regard in which he 
was generally held. At Pittsburgh, in Trinity 
Church, appropriate and impressive services were 
held, and many came to look at the face of their 
former townsman, concerning whom it was then 
said : "As he lay in the casket he was easily re- 
cognizable and there could be seen in him nothing 
but what was beautiful and good." Several of his 
sweetest melodies were played as his body was 
laid to rest in the Allegheny Cemetery beside his 
father and mother. 

Foster has been called "a wild briar rose of 
music," a characterization which is not entirely 
correct; for while his songs are simple both as 
to words and melody — he wrote both for the 
larger part of his ballads — there is a deep and 
controlling art in the best of his work. This 
ability was, of course, a gift, a spontaneous, in- 
spirational capacity, but it was governed and 
directed by an expert knowledge of music and 
was cultivated and developed by hard study and 
laborious effort in composition. In an upper 

9 [127] 



Stephen C. Foster 



room, isolated and heavily carpeted and with the 
passage leading to it treated in the same manner, 
alone with his piano he labored in fashioning and 
polishing his songs. They were not altogether 
the rapt outpourings of genius, but the result be- 
sides of intelligent and painstaking effort. 

In person Foster was of slight build, below 
middle height, but well formed and proportioned ; 
his face, with its high forehead and beautifully 
expressive eyes, was engaging. His manners 
were retiring, though he was interesting in con- 
versation when once his confidence was gained. 
He was lacking in manly pride and dignity, 
stability of mind and decision of character, which 
deficiencies with his improvidence made of him 
the ready companion of undesirable and dissolute 
persons. Among the poets, he took the greatest 
delight in Poe and was able to recite much of 
his verse without effort, so deeply had it impressed 
itself upon him. It is possible that in Poe he 
recognized a kindred genius; at least, the simi- 
larity of their careers is evident to the close of 
Foster's life. In order to obtain ideas for his 
songs he was in the habit of visiting camp meet- 
ings where, listening to the strange and fervent 
hymns, particularly those of the negroes, his poet 

[128] 



Stephen C. Foster 



soul would be lifted into the realm of lyric inven- 
tion. Riding in the stages up and down Broad- 
way, New York, was another and singular means 
which he employed to excite the flow of melodious 
numbers. During a portion of the later years he 
had as a boon companion the poet George Cooper, 
and in collaboration they would compose songs 
and from the proceeds of the sales of the manu- 
scripts gratify their convivial tastes, the work of 
composition, the sale and the squandering of the 
money having been in the case of some songs the 
experience of a single day. Foster's last words, 
spoken to the nurse who was about to dress his 
wound, were : " Oh, wait till tomorrow ! " 

Though his songs, not only of themselves, but 
in transcriptions of almost infinite number and 
variety are pulsating around the earth, the name 
of Stephen C. Foster is little known and honored. 
It is not to the credit of his countrymen that no 
adequate monument stands to his memory, fitly 
inscribed. Like the career of many another child 
of genius, his was a sad and an erring one, but 
we should not neglect to cherish in affectionate 
and honorable remembrance a man who has done 
so much to entertain, soothe, sweeten and purify 
the life of the world. 

[ 129 ] i 



THE PRIME FAMILY 



The lineage of the Primes may be traced by a 
fairly distinct ascent to the sixteenth century, 
when during the Spanish persecutions in the Low 
Countries, Flemish refugees bearing the name 
emigrated for safety to England. As far back as 
the year 1179 a chief magistrate of the city of 
Ypres, Flanders, was of this cognomen and the 
records reveal that from this time on for five 
centuries, or till 1680, there were fifteen others 
of the name who held this honorable position. 
The annals of London, Norwich and other parts 
of England disclose the name, though under the 
various spellings of Pryme, de la Pryme, Priem 
and Prime, all derived undoubtedly from one 
original source. The first representative of the 
family who came to this country was James 
Prime, a Puritan, who in the year 1638 cast his 
lot with a group of English colonists at Milf ord, 
Conn. It is not possible, however, to demonstrate 
the positive lineage of the American branch of 
the family from the Primes of England, though 
it is morally certain that such a connection exists. 

r 130] 



The Prime Family 



But if a real lineal association does not admit of 
proof concerning a blood relationship, it is read- 
ily seen that the name has ever stood for religious 
convictions of a positive nature, and of loyal 
courage, if denied their exercise, to turn their 
backs upon their native lands and seek their free- 
dom in foreign parts, characteristics which it will 
be observed further on, members of the American 
group well exemplified. 

James Prime, of Milford, called in the records 
of that place " Freeman" and " Planter/' and who 
left a large estate the inventory of which may still 
be read in the records of New Haven county, died 
in 1685 leaving a son, James Prime, 2d. Making 
his home at Milford, James Prime, 2d seems to 
have lived an uneventful life, engaged in the 
management of his extensive landed estate, a por- 
tion of which was located in the township of New 
Milford, on the Housatonic river, a large tract 
jointly owned and settled by families of the origi- 
nal town of that name. He was the father of 
three sons and seven daughters, the names of the 
former having been James, Joseph and Ebenezer ; 
he died at Milford at the great age of one hun- 
dred and three years. It being the purpose of 
this article to write as exclusively as convenient 

f 131 ] 



The Prime Family 



of the remarkable family of Rev. Nathaniel 
Scudder Prime, it is inexpedient to deal with other 
children of James Prime, 2d, than Ebenezer, 
through whom the direct line descends to the 
main subjects of the paper. It might also be said 
here that the family of Mark Prime, of Rowley, 
Mass., and his descendants, presumably of the 
same lineal stock, offers an interesting field for 
discussion, but it is too remote a branch of the 
present subject to be entertained at this time. 

The third son of James Prime, 2d, Ebenezer, 
was born at Milford on July 21, 1700, was edu- 
cated at the institution of learning afterwards 
called Yale College, prepared for the ministry 
and was installed in his first pastorate at Hunt- 
ington, Long Island, at the age of twenty-three 
years. He is said to have been "a man of sterling 
character, of powerful intellect, who possessed 
the reputation of an able and faithful divine." 
Not long after his settlement at Huntington he 
purchased a farm conveniently located to his 
church, which ceased not to be owned and occu- 
pied by himself and his direct descendants of the 
name for a period of more than one hundred and 
fifty years. The church over which he officiated, 
which was a Congregational organization, united 

[132] 



The Prime Family 



during his pastorate with several neighboring 
communions and together subscribing to the 
Presbyterian system, formed themselves into 
the Presbytery of Suffolk, Rev. Ebenezer Prime 
being chosen to serve as its first moderator. His 
family, congregation and church edifice suffered 
severely during the Revolution through the 
depredations of the British troops, who during 
the war overran Long Island. 

The pulpit and pews were torn from the church 
and used for fuel, the building was employed as 
a military store-house and his home as a barracks 
for the English soldiers, who tore up the books of 
his library, using them for kindling their fires. 
Like his Flemish and English Puritan ancestors, 
he had positive convictions and concerning them 
refused to keep silence, proclaiming boldly for the 
cause of the Colonies, which attitude in his 
seventy-seventh year brought upon him this cruel 
persecution, so that for the two remaining years 
of his life he was compelled to minister to his 
parish as best he could, preaching in their homes 
and laboring under discouraging and dangerous 
circumstances. As evidencing the hatred enter- 
tained by the British troops for the people of 
Huntington and the pastor of the Presbyterian 

[133] 



The Prime Family 



church, they used the gravestones of the cemetery 
for floors to their ovens, so that the bread baked 
therein bore upon it in raised letters the epitaphs 
of the dead, while the officer commanding the 
troops here gave orders that his tent be set up at 
the head of the grave of the now departed Pastor, 
Rev. Ebenezer Prime, so that he might tread on 
" the — old rebel every time he went in and out/' 
Benjamin Young Prime, M. D., son of Rev. 
Ebenezer Prime and his wife, Experience Youngs, 
was born at Huntington, December 9, 1733. He 
was graduated with honor in 1751 from the Col- 
lege of New Jersey, (Princeton) studied medi- 
cine, finished his professional education in 
Europe, receiving his medical degree from the 
University of Leyden, and returning to the 
United States began the practice of surgery in 
New York City. He was a ripe scholar, an ac- 
complished linguist, and being very patriotic em- 
ployed his literary talents in the Revolution to 
further the cause of the struggling Colonists. Dr. 
Prime was a poet of considerable distinction and 
was the author of three books of verse. During 
the excitement caused by the passage of the Stamp 
Act he wrote a song for the Sons of Liberty, of 
New York, which indicates that the old Prime 

[134] 



The Prime Family 



spirit of independence still fermented in the blood 
of that family. One stanza reads: 

In story we're told 

How our fathers old 
Braved the rage of the winds and the waves, 

And crossed the deep o'er 

To this desolate shore, 
All because they were loath to be slaves, Brave boys, 
All because they were loath to be slaves. 

During the latter years of the life of his father, 
Dr. Prime made his home with him at Hunting- 
ton, where he married Mary Wheelwright, widow 
of Rev. John Greaton of that place. At an early 
period of the Revolution, when the encroach- 
ments of the British began, Dr. Prime and his 
family were compelled to leave their home and 
were absent for a period of seven years, till the 
end of the war. When they returned they found 
the Prime property sadly dilapidated, but the 
family silver which Mrs. Prime in haste had 
placed in a sack and lowered into the well, was 
safe and intact, though the well had been in use 
by the British during their absence. Dr. Prime 
died at Huntington of apoplexy in 1791; his 
widow, who from her forethought and strategy 
concerning the silver plate gives a hint as to her 

[135] 



The Prime Family 



capability, was a practical and energetic woman, 
and after the death of her husband, coming 
into the control of the Prime estate, so handled 
its affairs as to liquidate it from the losses sus- 
tained in the Revolution. She died in 1835 at 
the advanced age of ninety years. Dr. Prime 
well exemplified the religious, scholarly and lit- 
erary traits which characterize the Prime family 
line. An interesting side-light is thrown upon 
his disposition in the naming of his youngest 
son, Nathaniel S. Prime, after his friend, Dr. 
Nathaniel Scudder, who had been his beloved 
companion in preparatory school, his room-mate 
in college, and associate in the study of medicine. 
Dr. Scudder was a man of talent, prominent in 
public affairs and serving with the Continental 
army was killed in an action with the British at 
Shrewsbury, N. J., in 1781. 

We have now arrived at the birth of Nathaniel 
Scudder Prime, D. D., who with his wife and 
talented five sons and two daughters will be the 
subjects of the remaining pages of this paper; 
that which has gone before, though not perhaps 
without interest, has been but introductory to the 
lives of the Primes now to be considered; for 
even the parents of these children and all the 

[136] 



The Prime Family 



other worthy representatives of the name who 
have been mentioned would never have figured in 
biography had not these scions of Nathaniel S. 
Prime by their lofty characters, unusual piety, 
profound scholarship and brilliant literary abili- 
ties lifted their forbears from the deep sea of 
obscurity and f orgetf ulness. 

Nathaniel S. Prime was born at Huntington 
on April 21, 1785; he was a graduate of Prince- 
ton, class of 1804; prepared for the ministry and 
was licensed in 1805 by the Presbytery of Long 
Island. Having had several years of employ- 
ment in home missionary work on Long Island 
and in Connecticut he was ordained at Hunting- 
ton in 1809, having married in the previous year 
Julia Ann Jermain, of Sag Harbor, L. I. After 
preaching two years in Long Island he accepted 
in 1812 an invitation to a small and weak Pres- 
byterian congregation in the little village of Mil- 
ton, Saratoga county, N. Y. Up to this time his 
career had been far from encouraging, with the 
prospect for a wide usefulness and a liberal liveli- 
hood quite unpromising, while the outlook in his 
new field was not reassuring. The Milton 
church had no parsonage for their minister, nor 
were there any accommodations there for his 

[137] 



The Prime Family 



family ; in this embarrassing situation the Pastor 
of the Presbyterian church at Ballston Springs 
offered to house them temporarily in his com- 
modious dwelling, which generous proposition 
was gratefully accepted. Here his third child 
was born to him: Samuel Irenaeus Prime; and 
during the winter the family removed to Milton, 
six miles away. His pastorate at this place was 
of brief duration and in the following year, 1813, 
receiving a call from the Presbyterian church 
of Cambridge, Washington county, N. Y., 
twenty-five miles east of Milton, he accepted, and 
the farmers of that congregation making a" bee," 
came over across the Hudson river with their 
teams and made sure of their Pastor, an eager- 
ness which must have seemed to the worthy 
minister, so accustomed to the experience of 
hardness, a delightful occurrence. 

Dr. Prime ministered to the church at Cam- 
bridge for a period of fifteen years. His con- 
gregation was distributed over a wide territory 
embracing an area of twelve square miles, a 
beautiful and fertile country in the Cambridge 
valley, at the border of the Green Mountains, and 
occupied by an industrious, thrifty and intelligent 
people. During the latter portion of his resi- 

r 138] 



The Prime Family 



dence here he served, in addition to his pastoral 
labors, as principal of the Cambridge Academy, 
which then and for many years after was an 
educational institution of considerable distinc- 
tion. He was thus able to indulge his scholarly 
tastes and abilities, for he was throughout his 
career deeply enamoured of study, general cul- 
ture and scientific investigation. His voice and 
pen were ever unequivocally employed against 
slavery and intemperance at a time when heroism 
was required to antagonize these evils, and far 
beyond the limits of his parish his influence was 
felt and acknowledged. At that early period 
clergymen not infrequently indulged too freely in 
the flowing bowl and they kept wine and liquor 
conveniently at hand for the regalement of their 
guests; but Dr. Prime having on a day in 1811 
read the epoch-making essay of Dr. Rush, of 
Philadelphia, on the deleterious effects of alcohol, 
thenceforth ceased to dispense ardent spirits to 
his callers. He was a versatile and energetic 
man, interested and active in every movement 
which promised better advancement for the 
people, and was an authority on Presbyterian 
ecclesiastical law and polity; in the official meet- 
ings of his denomination he was a marked indi- 

r 139 1 



The Prime Family 



viduality both on account of his wide information 
and for his cordial manners and fine personal 
appearance; when he addressed his hearers his 
voice rang out with a clarion tone in which the 
convictions of the speaker were apparent in the 
very inflections of his words and in the com- 
manding attitude of his impressive figure. As 
can easily be imagined, a man of this fearless 
and uncompromising nature must have aroused 
opposition, which proved to be the case in his 
Cambridge parish, and though the great majority 
of his congregation stood with Dr. Prime, he 
finally found it expedient to seek occupation in 
another field. From Cambridge he was called 
in 1830 to the principalship of Mount Pleasant 
Academy, Sing Sing, N. Y., where as at his pre- 
vious home he employed himself also as Minister 
of the Presbyterian church. Space does not 
admit of the detailing of his further activities, 
his contributions to the press and his authorship 
of three books, viz.: A Collection of Hymns 
(1809), Christian Baptism (1818), and History 
of Long Island (1845), the last devoted largely to 
ecclesiastical annals. He died on the 27th of 
March, 1856, having spent the day in preparing 

[140] 



The Prime Family 



a sermon on the text, Love is the fulfilling of the 
law. 

Thus far in this sketch attention has been 
devoted almost entirely to the fathers of the 
Primes, which really appears not only ungallant 
but positively a remission of biographic com- 
pleteness and accuracy, a criticism, however, that 
cannot be laid at the door of the present writer, 
for the reason that the mothers, though an equal 
portion of their blood flows in the veins of • their 
progeny, have been treated, so far as memorials 
of them are concerned, as though they were 
negligible factors. It is appropriate, therefore, 
that we pause a moment to indite in justice a word 
of appreciation and praise for Julia Ann Jer- 
main, the wife of Nathaniel S. Prime, and the 
mother of their distinguished children, and to 
say of her that she was one of the best and noblest 
of women, who like many another wife whom 
history neglects, in the quiet life of the home was 
perhaps in a greater degree the fashioner of their 
notable careers than the husband. She was a 
beautiful and cultivated woman, rich in those 
graces of mind, heart and character which at- 
tract friends and dispense high and lasting influ- 
ences, which elements are still reflected in the 



[141] 



The Prime Family 



biographies and books of her children. She died 
on August 24, 1874, having survived her hus- 
band upwards of eighteen years. 

We will now give a brief account of the lives 
of the seven children of Rev. Nathaniel S. Prime, 
taking them up in the order of their births : 

Maria Margaretta Prime, who was born at 
Sag Harbor, L. L, on August 14, 1809, was a 
precocious child and while under fifteen had 
translated and committed to writing some of the 
Greek and Latin classics, finishing her education 
at the Seminary of Emma Willard, in Troy, 
N. Y. Beginning at the age of fifteen years she 
served as assistant to her father in the Cambridge 
Academy and in 1831 they founded at Sing Sing, 
N. Y., the Mount Pleasant Female Seminary, in 
which institution she taught, both there and at 
Newburgh, N. Y., to which city it was removed 
in 1835. In the capacity of a teacher she was 
very influential, having aided several young men 
while at Cambridge in their preparation for col- 
lege, and while at Sing Sing and Newburgh 
young ladies from all parts of the country were 
in her classes. She was married in 1836 to Mr. 
A. P. Cumings, who was an editor of the New 
York Observer, to which paper and to other 

[142] 



The Prime Family 



periodicals Mrs. Cumings was a contributor. 
She was a woman of high excellences of char- 
acter with literary talents of considerable note, 
having published two books, The Missionary's 
Daughter, and Memorial of Mrs. Catharine Ann 
Jermain, of Albany. Her death occurred on 
December 28, 1905, at her home in Brooklyn, in 
the ninety-seventh year of her age. 

Alanson Jermain Prime, M. D., like all his 
brothers and sisters, received his early education 
at Cambridge, where the father as Principal of 
the Academy was able to personally prepare his 
older sons for college and to gain the increase of 
income above his salary as Pastor, whereby he 
might maintain them there. He was born at 
Smithtown, L. I., March 12, 1811, was a student 
at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, 
N. Y., and later studied medicine at Cambridge 
with Dr. Matthew Stevenson and with Dr. 
Adrian K. Hoffman, of Sing Sing. He gradu- 
ated from the College of Physicians and Sur- 
geons, of New York in 1832, practiced for a 
brief season in Schenectady, N. Y., and then 
opened an office at Grand Haven, Mich. Soon 
after his settlement here he was prostrated with 
malarial fever and was compelled to return to 

10 f 143 ] 



The Prime Family 



the East, where upon his recovery he became 
Principal of the Newburgh Academy, from 
which position he after a time resigned and for 
a year practiced his profession at Plattekill, 
Ulster county, N. Y. He was married to Miss 
Ruth Higbie, of Troy, N. Y., in 1836. From 
1848 to his death in 1864, he practiced medicine 
at White Plains, N. Y. He was of a literary and 
scientific turn of mind, contributing to leading 
periodicals and with Prof. Emmons, New York 
State Geologist, in 1845, started a serial which 
was published at Albany, N. Y., for two years, 
called the American Quarterly Journal of Agri- 
culture and Science. 

Samuel Irenaeus Prime, D. D., had his nativity 
at Ballston Springs, N. Y., November 4, 1812, 
while has father was Pastor of the Presbyterian 
church at Milton, a few miles away, and living 
temporarily at the former place. When, in the 
following summer, the family moved to Cam- 
bridge, Irenaeus was less than a year old, and 
hence all his early recollections up to the age of 
young manhood clustered, and very fondly, 
around this attractive rural community, concern- 
ing which he ever entertained the most loyal and 
affectionate remembrances, many of which are 

[1441 



The Prime Family 



beautifully enshrined in his classic book, The Old 
White Meeting House. On August 29, 1873, 
the Centennial anniversary of the old town of 
Cambridge was celebrated with appropriate cere- 
monies, Dr. Prime being one of the distinguished 
sons present as a speaker, and near the close of 
his address he spoke feelingly as follows: 

"Alas how many of the youth who were my companions 
forty years ago are now beyond the centuries in the 
eternities! How changed the scenes that my heart 
rejoiced in ! The streams in which the trout waited for 
me, and came out at my invitation, are almost dry. The 
streets and lanes are no longer those in which I played 
and strayed. The fields that were once harvested for corn 
are now covered with beautiful houses, but the same old 
hills are here — the eternal hills — they stand sentries 
of this glorious plain, and the same skies bend lovingly 
over it, and the same God is Father of us all. Like Jeru- 
salem, old Cambridge is dear to her sons, who take pleas- 
ure in her stones and favor the dust thereof, and we can 
piously say, ' If I forget thee, old Cambridge, let my right 
hand forget its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof 
of my mouth.' " 

When less than seventeen years of age he 
graduated from Williams College in 1829, having 
one of the honors of his class. After spending 
three years in teaching he entered Princeton 

f 145] 



The Prime Family 



Theological Seminary, which he was compelled 
to leave through infirmity of health, but was later, 
in 1833, licensed to preach, and in the same year 
became head of the Academy at Weston, Conn. 
This year was an eventful one in his career, for 
in it he was also married, his bride being Miss 
Elizabeth Thornton, daughter of Hon. Edward 
Kemeys, of Sing Sing. 

Two years later, in 1835, he was ordained and 
installed Pastor of the Presbyterian church at 
Ballston Springs, where a former Pastor of 
which had entertained his father for several 
months in his home in 1812, and where he was 
born. His wife having died in 1834, he married 
in 1835 Miss Eloisa Lemet, daughter of Mr. 
Moses Williams, of Ballston Springs, and on 
account of failing health resigned about this time 
from the pastorate and afterwards was made 
Principal of the Academy at Newburgh. Hav- 
ing devoted himself to this occupation for a period 
of two years, he became Pastor of the Presby- 
terian church at Matteawan, N. Y., in 1837, 
where he remained till 1840, when the state of 
his health made it necessary for him to relin- 
quish his pastorate. Having become stronger, 
he accepted the editorship of the New York 

r i46i 



The Prime Family 



Observer, a position which he held till his death 
and which proved a place where his genius was 
adapted to shine and where he won a very large 
measure of distinction and exercised a wide in- 
fluence for usefulness. Beginning in 1853, he 
made three extensive travel trips to Europe, the 
first extending to Palestine and Egypt, accounts 
of which under the pen-name of " Irenaeus " he 
contributed to the Observer in weekly letters, 
which were read with interest and became a prom- 
inent feature of that periodical. His life was 
from now on one of extraordinary activity, — 
editing, traveling, writing over forty volumes of 
books, in addition to pamphlets, tracts and ad- 
dresses ; he was prominent in many philanthropic, 
religious and educational societies, at the meet- 
ings of which he was conspicuous from his 
amiable disposition, witty remarks and enlighten- 
ing counsel. Yet he was subject throughout his 
life to lapses of health, which was the cause in a 
measure at least of his first trip abroad, which 
should be taken into account in summing up the 
wide scope and vast volume of his work, concern- 
ing which it may be said that some of his books 
were printed in foreign languages and in great 
editions. He died of a paralytic stroke at Man- 

[147] 



The Prime Family 



Chester, Vt., where he was stopping, on July 18, 
1885. 

Edward Dorr Griffin Prime, D. D., was born 
at Cambridge, November 2, 1814, graduated at 
Union College with one of the honors of his 
class in 1832, and later assisted his father as 
teacher in the Cambridge Academy and in the 
Mount Pleasant Academy at Sing Sing. He 
studied medicine for a time but abandoned jt to 
prepare himself for the Christian ministry, and 
having entered Princeton Theological Seminary 
he graduated in 1838. Not long after finishing 
his course here he was called to be an assistant 
to Rev. Methuselah Baldwin, of the Scotchtown, 
Orange county, N. Y., Presbyterian church, and 
on the death of Rev. Mr. Baldwin in 1847, he 
assumed the pastorate of the charge. While at 
Scotchtown he was married in 1839 to Miss 
Maria Darlington, daughter of Mr. John S. Wil- 
son, of Princeton, N. J. Having contributed 
articles with the pen-name of " Eusebius " to the 
New York Observer, he acted as editor of that 
paper in 1883 while his brother was traveling in 
foreign parts, and continued after his return as 
associate editor of the periodical until the death 
of Irenaeus in 1885. He served as chaplain of 

[148] 



The Prime Family 



the American Embassy in Rome during the 
winter of 1854-5, and returning home assumed 
again his editorial work on the Observer. He 
was married in 1860 to Miss Abbie Davis, daugh- 
ter of Rev. William Goodell, D. D., of Constanti- 
nople. Being at this time in poor health, he in 
company with Mrs. Prime began a tour around 
the world which occupied, with prolonged visits 
in different parts of the East, a period of ten 
years, during which time he studied the religious 
situations in the various lands in which he so- 
journed, and in his letters to the Observer laid 
before its readers the results of his observations, 
particularly concerning the status of Christian 
missions. His principal literary work was a 
volume dealing with his studies and experiences 
in this journey and was entitled, Around the 
World: Sketches of Travel through Many 
Lands and over Many Seas, published in 1872. 
On the death of his brother Irenaeus he was 
made editor of the Observer, but continued but 
a year to serve in this capacity owing to the deli- 
cate condition of his health. His death occurred 
on April 7, 1891, in New York. He was also 
the author of the work, Forty Years in the 

[149] 



The Prime Family 



Turkish Empire; or Memoirs of Rev. William 
Goodell, D. D., (1876) his father-in-law. 

Cornelia Prime was born at Cambridge on 
November 29, 1816, was educated under the care 
of her father and sister, became a teacher in the 
Mount Pleasant Female Seminary at Sing Sing, 
and in 1841 married Rev. Paul E. Stevenson, then 
Pastor of the Presbyterian church at Staunton, 
Va. From 1844 to 1849 her husband was Pastor 
of the Presbyterian church at Williamsburg, 
N. Y., and from thence was called to the congre- 
gation of the same denomination at Wyoming, 
Pa. He now began to devote himself to educa- 
tional pursuits and was principal of schools at 
Luzern, Pa., and at Bridgeton and Madison, 
N. J. Just how far Mrs. Stevenson may have 
been influential in encouraging her husband in 
this change of occupation is not known, but it is 
stated that she was associated with him in the 
establishment in 1866, in Paterson, N. J., of the 
Passaic Falls Institute for Young Ladies. Four 
years later Rev. Mr. Stevenson died, and for a 
number of years thereafter his widow was at the 
head of the school. She possessed the inherited 
literary talent so prominent in the Prime family 

[150] 



The Prime Family 



and employed it in the preparation of contribu- 
tions to the magazines. 

Gerrit Wendell Prime whose birth occurred 
at Cambridge on July 13, 1819, died in his eigh- 
teenth year while a student in Union College. In 
the spring of 1837 while going down the Hudson 
river to visit his home, the steamer having become 
stalled in the ice, he walked ashore on the frag- 
ments and on to the city of Hudson, where, upon 
arriving at his hotel, he was attacked with 
typhoid fever and died on the 12th of April. He 
was a young man of promise who purposed to 
make the gospel ministry the occupation of his 
life. 

William Cowper Prime, LL. D., the seventh 
and youngest child of Rev. Nathaniel S. Prime, 
was born at Cambridge on October 31, 1825. 
He entered the sophomore class of Princeton in 
1840, graduated three years later, and having 
studied law was admitted to the bar of New 
York in 1846. He practiced his profession here 
till 1861, when he became part owner and the 
editor of the New York Journal of Commerce. 
He was married in 1851 to Miss Mary Trum- 
bull, daughter of Hon. Gurdon Trumbull, of 
Stonington, Conn. He traveled in Europe and 

f 151] 



The Prime Family 



the East and published as the fruit of his jour- 
neys two uncommonly able and interesting 
volumes, viz. : Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia, 
and Tent Life in the Holy Land. The former 
work, published in 1864, still remains an exceed- 
ingly realistic and illuminating treatise on Egyp- 
tian antiquities, written in a charming style and 
interspersed with occasional exhibitions of real 
eloquence ; — the author lays before the reader 
in an easy, familiar manner descriptions of the 
wonderful ruins and ancient subterranean burial 
cavities with startling distinctness and detail. 
History, geography, topography and incidents of 
travel are all attractively treated in this scholarly 
but truly fascinating book. Dr. Prime from his 
young manhood up was an enthusiastic collector 
of art specimens and in later years his thorough 
study of this subject made him an authority in 
such branches and led to his writing two 
books treating of certain of them, one being 
entitled, Coins, Medals and Seals, Ancient and 
Modern (1861) ; the other, Pottery and Porcelain 
of all Times and Nations (1878). He had the 
greatest literary gifts of any of the name, and 
besides possessed the family characteristics of 
scholarship and the attitude of devout religious 

[1521 



The Prime Family 



conviction ; he was a devotee of beauty, following 
it in art and nature with enthusiastic relish. His 
books of essays, as Later Years (1854), and, I 
Go a Fishing (1873), discover this ardent bent 
of mind together with his romantic spirit and 
gift of eloquent diction. 

In the introduction to his collection of essays, 
Later Years, the author in a few words discloses 
the motive of his literary life. He says : " I 
have but one rule in preparing these sketches. 
It has been to make my readers, as far as possible, 
my companions in the enjoyment of the beau- 
tiful wherever I find it, whether in nature, art, 
memories or dreams. I have lived for it, I have 
worshiped nothing else." 

Several of these sketches are dated at "Owl 
Creek Cabin," the stream being that which flows 
south through the village of Cambridge, his early 
home, and down through the valley to enter the 
Hoosac river. Though the author was not more 
than five years old when his family left Cam- 
bridge, he cherished ever a deep affection for this 
wide, meandering creek and for the fair pastoral 
scenes through which it lazily winds, and visiting 
it and loitering with rod and line along its banks, 
indited the first of his literary ventures. These 

[153] 



The Prime Family 



were printed in the New York Journal of Com- 
merce and afterwards collected in three volumes, 
the first being entitled The Owl Creek Letters 
(1848). 

Soon after the founding of the New York 
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dr. Prime became 
one of its most active supporters and by his wide 
and accurate knowledge of the subjects to which 
it was devoted was of great and lasting aid to the 
institution, having served it as acting president 
and in other capacities through a long period of 
time. He was made professor of art history in 
Princeton College in 1884. 

An unique and valuable memorial of the Prime 
family is the complete library of books and pam- 
phlets written by the members of the American 
branch, the collection of which was commenced 
by Rev. Samuel I. Prime. One of the most in- 
teresting volumes in the library is the old Greek 
Testament bearing date, Amsterdam, 1740, which 
being first owned by Rev. Ebenezer Prime, was 
passed on to his son, Benjamin Y. Prime; it 
then became the text-book in college and through 
his ministry of his son, Rev. Nathaniel S. Prime, 
from whom it descended to his son, Rev. Samuel 
I. Prime, to be inherited by his son, Rev. Wendell 

[154] 



The Prime Family 



Prime. The Testament has thus been studied 
by five generations of the family, the long con- 
tinued service having required it to be bound at 
three different times. Another notable volume 
in the collection is, A Treatise of the Sacraments, 
by Rev. John Prime, of Oxford University, and 
dating back to the sixteenth century. As if 
anticipating the abundance of books of which his 
family in the future years would be the authors, 
and as if making justification for the same, he 
says in his introductory pages: 

' The endlesse making of bookes was a vanitye 
in the days of Solomon, when printing was not. 
The end of all is the feare of God. Certainly 
men may not make it a light matter of conscience 
to trouble the worlde with unprofitable writinges. 
Yet as in the shew-bread that was shewed to the 
people as a figure of Christ, the olde loaves hav- 
ing served their use were removed, & other sup- 
plied in their roome, yet still bread in nature & 
twelve loaves in nomber; so these writinges that 
figure out Christ & set foorth Christian duetye 
may be oftentimes treated of, & ef tsoone repeated 
& added to other mens doings notwithstanding 
no great variety in the matter of handling/' etc. 



[155 



The Prime Family 



The village of Cambridge and its Presbyterian 
church cherish a worthy pride, in their previous 
associations with the family of Prime, the salu- 
tary influences of which still invisibly leaven the 
community. The writer of this article, who 
was born here and has been for many years a 
member of this Old White Meeting House com- 
munion, as he goes about the pleasant streets of 
this beautiful village, observes its fine modern 
hospital, erected through the munificence of one 
of the sons of Old Cambridge, adorning one of 
the hills above, its handsome library building 
below, and evidences of prosperity and Christian 
culture everywhere, is confident that the teach- 
ings of Rev. Nathaniel # S. Prime did not return 
unto his Lord and Master void of permanent 
efficacy, but are today operative for good in Cam- 
bridge and all along the valley of the classic Owl 
Creek, and, through his gifted children, to the 
ends of the earth. 



r i56i 



COLUMBUS, "THE PAUPER PILOT" 



The discovery of the island of San Salvador 
on October 12, 1492, by Christopher Columbus, 
was the greatest event apart from Scriptural 
chronicles in the history of the world. It is im- 
material whether he or another first beheld the 
mainland of America, for it was the genius of 
Columbus which conceived and his heroism which 
realized the existence of territory far off on the 
unexplored sea. 

But he was eminent not only for what he ac- 
complished, but even more illustrious in himself, 
— in his own high and richly endowed personal 
character and in his intellectual attainments. 
Not a few who have become distinguished for 
what they have done, when their real lives and 
motives have been analyzed, have been found 
quite inferior when measured by ethical stand- 
ards; but Columbus, intrinsically, was greater 
than his discoveries. Of a deeply religious dis- 
position, a devoted student of the Scriptures, he 
seems during the many weary years which he 
passed in soliciting from courts their aid for his 
great venture, to have been actuated by lofty and 

[ 157] 



Columbus, " The Pauper Pilot " 

disinterested purposes. He felt himself to be the 
chosen emissary of God to carry the gospel to 
heathen peoples and resolved to devote the profits 
to accrue from his hoped-for discoveries to the 
redemption of the Holy Sepulchre from the 
hands of unbelievers. The very names he bore 
were to him providentially indicative of the part 
he was to play in the conversion of the popula- 
tions he was to find; Christopher signifying 
" Christbearer," and Columbus, "dove;" that is, 
he believed himself commissioned from on high 
to introduce Christianity to the West in the 
power of the Holy Spirit. In reference to this 
conviction it is interesting to note that he named 
the first land which he discovered, " Savior," or 
Salvador. Though Columbus was a learned and 
practical geographer and an experienced mariner, 
having followed the sea for many years, he was 
yet a dreamer and a man of poetic inclinations; 
he was, moreover, of a superstitious mind and 
fancied he sometimes heard voices talking to him 
out of the void of the air. 

The real greatness and shining distinction of 
Columbus is evident in his persistent though dis- 
couraging labors, extending through many years, 
while he was vainly soliciting aid from court to 

[158] 



Columbus, " The Pauper Pilot " 

court of Europe to fit him out a fleet for a west- 
ern expedition of discovery. Poor, almost friend- 
less, derided as a visionary, he never throughout 
eighteen years of petitioning faltered in his work 
until it was achieved. His proposition was 
assailed and ridiculed by more learned men than 
he, while the proud science and intolerant religion 
of his day either considered him unworthy of 
serious attention or pompously laid objections 
before him which now appear ridiculous. 

Finally he came to Ferdinand and Isabella, 
King and Queen of Spain. These monarchs, 
though interested in his scheme and disposed to 
render him aid, were so much occupied with the 
war with the Moors that they could promise no 
definite date when their assistance would be avail- 
able. After having occupied seven years in this 
fruitless endeavor, following the court from place 
to place as an object of royal charity, and taking 
part in some of the military activities, he at last 
abandoned hope of success in Spain. Eighteen 
of the best years of his life had now been evi- 
dently wasted in the attempted promotion of his 
mighty adventure, and all that he had won with 
his toil and sacrifice was the reputation for being 
a visionary and the title, " The Pauper Pilot/' 

11 [1S9] 



Columbus, " The Pauper Pilot " 

While in poverty and discouragement he was 
journeying through Spain to the west coast, he 
called at a convent for refreshment, where the 
prior, impressed by his distinguished air despite 
his evident need, engaged him in conversation. 
Columbus laid before his listener his ambitious 
plans of discovery and the prior called in able 
scientists and qualified mariners, that they might 
hear his arguments and decide upon their feasi- 
bility. As a result of the council it was decided 
to communicate with the Queen in behalf of 
Columbus' proposition. The prior, Juan Perez, 
had been father confessor to Queen Isabella and 
in the visit which he now made to the Spanish 
court at Santa Fe was favorably received, and 
obtained the promise of the Queen to furnish 
ships and men for the proposed expedition. 

The Queen was a woman of noble qualities of 
mind and soul and fair to look upon; light com- 
plexioned, blue eyed and of medium height. 
Though quiet and unassuming in manner, she 
was yet of a strong and vigorous mind, capable 
of originating and prosecuting extensive enter- 
prises. A woman of simple tastes, of a kindly 
nature, she was a friend of Columbus whose 
memory may well be dear to America. An in- 

[160] 



Columbus, " The Pauper Pilot 



teresting and pathetic scene, which evidences the 
sympathetic heart of Isabella, was enacted at 
Grenada when Columbus was brought back from 
his third expedition. Appearing before the King 
and Queen with the burden of dishonoring chains 
upon him, he was kindly received, Isabella being 
deeply moved as she considered the indignities 
which had been unjustly laid upon this great- 
souled discoverer and world benefactor. When 
Columbus beheld the tears of his Queen, though 
until now he had carried himself proudly, his 
pent up grief escaped control and he fell on his 
knees weeping bitterly ; then the King and Queen 
left their royal dais and with their own hands 
lifted him to his feet. 

Columbus in person was above the average 
height, strongly built, athletic, and of dignified 
manners. His complexion and eyes were light, 
while his hair, which originally had been sandy, 
had through the hardships which he had endured 
become in early manhood, white. He was of an 
amiable disposition, eloquent in the presentation 
of his ideas and of deep, sincere religious con- 
victions. 

Columbus sailed from the port of Palos, Spain, 
on August 3, 1492, his fleet consisting of three 

[1611 



Columbus, " The Pauper Pilot " 

small ships and a total of one hundred and twenty 
persons. A stop of about three weeks was made 
for repairs at the Canary Islands, but from 
thence to the discovery of land was but the space 
of thirty-three days. The crews were composed 
of the lowest order, many criminals being among 
them, for a sufficient number of respectable men 
could not be found to man the vessels bound on 
what was deemed so wild a venture. These men 
were fairly representative of those who followed 
them in the years immediately after the dis- 
covery; — adventurers and fortune seekers whose 
purpose, like that of King Ferdinand, was to 
wring from the virgin territories their treasures 
of wealth. The friendly and inoffensive natives 
of the Bahamas, accustomed to lives of indolence, 
were sacrificed by tens of thousands in arduous 
labors in order to fill the coffers of their Spanish 
masters. Ship loads of islanders were sent to 
Spain and sold as slaves, of whom Columbus had 
written : 

"The natives love their neighbors as them- 
selves; their conversation is the sweetest imagi- 
nable, their faces always smiling, and so gentle 
and so affectionate are they, that I swear there 
is not a better people in the world." 

[162] 



Columbus, " The Pauper Pilot " 

Yet, taking advantage of their childlike credu- 
lity, the Spaniards shipped 40,000 of them to His- 
paniola (Haiti) to die in the mines, telling them 
they were being taken to the place of their de- 
parted friends and relatives. In the midst of all 
this cruelty and resulting misery the name of Las 
Casas, Spanish missionary, shines with a benevo- 
lent and lasting light ; for he did much through a 
ministry of many years to alleviate the sufferings 
of the natives. 

. Columbus, it must be admitted, was a party to 
the forcing of tributes of gold from the savages, 
for he was solicitous to win favor from his sov- 
ereigns, though Isabella disapproved of these 
inhuman practices. His conviction was that the 
persons and property of pagans were rightfully 
the spoil of Christians, and believing that he had 
reached the borders of India, (or Asia) he ex- 
pected to find and appropriate the fabulous 
wealth of Cathay, of which he had read in the 
pages of Marco Polo. 

Columbus died in poverty and neglect at Seville 
on May 20, 1506. Isabella, his royal friend, who 
had ever appreciated his genius and advanced his 
interests, had died two years earlier, and Ferdi- 
nand, of a jealous and avaricious disposition, re- 

[163] 



Columbus, " The Pauper Pilot " 

fused to bestow upon him the honors and emolu- 
ments to which he was entitled. History scarcely 
affords a more despicable instance of meanness 
and ingratitude. The remains of Columbus 
after having been removed from place to place, 
were in 1796 finally deposited with all possible 
honors in the Cathedral at Havana, Cuba, on the 
soil of an Island which he had first made known 
to the world. 

Columbus, Columbus, prince of discovery! 

Thy faith was stronger than the waves and wider than 

the sea; 
It builded up a continent and all its destiny. 

The thought that burned unquenched by fear within thy 

earnest breast, 
Was not of longing for thyself by fame to be expressed ; 
Thy zeal untiring was not thine, but a divine behest. 

Far off upon the shore of Spain thy sails in hope were set ; 
Hope was thy stay when mutiny spread round its fateful 

net. 
Thy faith and hope are ours today, and we discoverers yet. 

The billows of futurity stretch out beyond our ken ; 
O nations of the continent, O mariners be men ! 
We sail for an America unknown to chart or pen ! 



\ 164 I 



THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY AND 
THE ORDINANCE OF 1787 



The Northwest Territory! What visions of 
a fertile wilderness lying unreclaimed at our 
doors did this term suggest to the American 
colonists! A vast equilateral triangle with one 
point at the junction of the Ohio with the Mis- 
sissippi and broadening out in the embrace of 
those noble rivers, having for its northern boun- 
dary four of the great lakes and comprising 
within its borders the coming States of Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. This 
group of commonwealths enjoy the distinction of 
having been born as the first fruits of the Revo- 
lution ; five radiant sisters to stand as monuments 
and shining testimonies to the faith and valor of 
George Rogers Clark and the pioneers associated 
with him. 

Never before had there been so tempting a ter- 
ritorial prize ; — vast and fertile prairies, beau- 
tiful and fragrant with wild flowers; limitless 
forests, grandly silent through their shadowy 
aisles ; riches untold of copper and iron and coal ; 

[165] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

magnificent rivers abounding with fish, and lead- 
ing into the interior of these elysian lands given 
over to the Indian, the buffalo and beasts of prey ; 
while along the northern border were the mighty 
lakes, connecting with navigable waters the 
northwest and northeast angles, and these 
within easy reach of the southern extremity by 
means of the Ohio and Mississippi and their 
tributaries. An ideal habitation for men, abound- 
ing in all that makes life opulent and successful. 
And those majestic waters of the north had, 
besides their wealth of fish and transportation 
facilities, grand and inspiring elements of them- 
selves : — Superior, with her fifteen hundred 
miles of rock-ribbed shores, noble, towering head- 
lands and lofty, frowning cliffs ; Huron, with her 
blue-tinted crystal waters and her thousands upon 
thousands of islands; Michigan, reaching her 
friendly arm and genial tempering breath far into 
the interior; Erie, with her shallow, turbid, 
storm-smitten and tempest-tossed waters, sub- 
lime but dangerous; all this, together with the 
illusive mirage dwelling like enchanting dreams 
above the wide expanse of waters, associated the 
northern limits with reverential awe, mystery and 
haunting beauty. 

[166] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

It had been a fond dream of the French dwell- 
ing in Canada to possess themselves of this 
desirable region, as well as of all the lands west 
of the Alleghenies, extending to the Mississippi 
and reaching on the north to the great lakes. 
The domain had early become known to them 
through the exploration of John Nicolet, a 
Frenchman in the employ of Champlain. He made 
his journey in 1634, his purpose being primarily 
to conciliate and secure to the French the Indian 
tribes inhabiting the land, and to gain their 
trade. He returned with an encouraging report 
and accompanied with seven of the natives as 
specimens of them. But Champlain saw no 
futher fruition of his ardent hope, for he died 
on Christmas Day of the same year in which 
Nicolet visited the coveted territory. 

The French from the first were industrious in 
planting a cordon of settlements and forts 
through their alleged possessions, following the 
line of the great lakes and the Mississippi river, 
and at later periods establishing posts in the in- 
terior, notably Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania, at the confluence of the Allegheny 
and Monongahela rivers, which they had cap- 
tured from the English. A source of weakness, 

[167] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

however, in their work of colonization was, that 
their efforts were confined principally to foster- 
ing trade and religion, while agriculture and the 
mechanical employments were for the most part 
neglected. But the Catholic religious worship 
which they introduced, with its emblematic 
ritual, was attractive to the Indians, and with the 
cordiality of the French, their presents and the 
conveniences of trade which they supplied, they 
easily made friends of the tribes. 

On the other hand, the English dwelling along 
the comparatively sterile coast of the Atlantic 
were deficient in the qualities with which to in- 
gratiate themselves into the good favor of the 
Indians, their manners being less cordial and 
their religious worship simple and unadorned. 
Yet, it might be said here that Sir William John- 
son as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, by the 
employment of the gracious methods of the 
French, made himself master of the great Iro- 
quois confederacy, controlling them for a period 
of many years in fealty to the English. 

From the year 1748, when with the organiza- 
tion of the first Ohio Land Company, the great 
struggle for the Northwest Territory began, until 
1759, when with the fall of Quebec the French 

[168] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

claims were rendered void and their authority 
throughout America interdicted, there was battle 
upon battle, massacre upon massacre, fearful 
chapters of history portraying the French with 
their Indian allies fighting for supremacy and 
the control of the vast and virgin wilderness. 
For the English had become the aggressors; 
plain, vigorous, fearless, determined people with 
domestic tastes and agricultural ambitions. 
Many were immigrants from the north of 
Europe, and with the growth of population the 
enticing lands to the west were inviting the 
people, and they responded. They felt, too, that 
they were the rightful owners of the territory, 
for royal grants to the colonies had given them 
titles extending to the Pacific. 

During the Revolution, acting largely on the 
prudent policy of gaining possession of the North- 
west Territory in order to be able to enter a valid 
claim for it when peace should be declared, the 
colony of Virginia in 1778 sent George Rogers 
Clark at his own request on an expedition against 
the settlements located in the disputed lands. 
He took Kaskaskia on the Mississippi and other 
places in that vicinity, following up the advantage 
gained by compelling the surrender of the French 

[1691 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

troops at Vincennes on the Wabash. He also 
erected a fort on the Ohio, from which as a 
nucleus grew the city of Louisville. The colony 
of Virginia as the result of Clark's successes, 
claimed all this territory and constituted it the 
county of Illinois. In the deliberations of the 
peace commissioners at the Treaty of Paris, at 
the close of the Revolution, the British repre- 
sentatives contended that the Northwest Terri- 
tory should remain the dependency of their 
nation, but when it had been conclusively shown 
that Kaskaskia, Vincennes and other posts taken 
by Clark were held by Virginia, giving the pos- 
session of the territory to that colony, the objec- 
tions were withdrawn and the treaty signed. 

To General Clark, therefore, belongs the honor 
of securing to the Union the Northwest Terri- 
tory. It was he who first proposed the expedi- 
tion, appealing for aid to the Virginia 
Legislature, and having been refused, laid the 
proposition before the Governor, Henry Clay, 
who granted him all the help that was at his 
disposal. He was in all respects an exceptional 
man; — physically robust with a noble, command- 
ing presence, dignified manners and fearless, in- 

[170] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

defatigable determination. Unlike many who 
have possessed military abilities and great hardi- 
hood and resourcefulness in the presence of diffi- 
culty and danger, General Clark had a wide and 
intelligent political grasp and was at home in the 
business of colonization schemes and territorial 
acquisitions. His contemporaries accorded him 
while in the full tide of his success and honors, 
ample distinction, bestowing upon him the so- 
briquet, " The Hannibal of the West;" but his 
invaluable services to the country were in his 
later years forgotten and he was left to pine and 
die in poverty. The account given in his 
memoirs of the expedition against Vincennes, in 
which he dramatically recounts the extraordinary 
hardships and perils which he and his men en- 
dured, is a classic in that field of literature. He 
died at his home, " Mulberry Hill," three miles 
south of Louisville, on the Kentucky shore, Feb- 
ruary 18, 1818, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 

James A. Garfield, in his address on the 
" Western Reserve," eulogizes General Clark and 
animadverts on his neglect by the people : 

" It is a stain upon the honor of our country 
that such a man — the leader of pioneers who 

r i7i ] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

made the first lodgement on the site now occu- 
pied by Louisville, who was in fact the founder 
of the state of Kentucky, and who by his per- 
sonal foresight and energy gave nine great states 
to the republic — was allowed to sink under a 
load of debt incurred for the honor and glory of 
his country. 5 ' 

The allotment of the lands of the Northwest 
Territory proved to the national government, on 
account of the indefinite and conflicting claims of 
different states, a difficult task. Several states, 
as has been pointed out, held charters entitling 
them to lands extending across the continent, 
while Virginia laid claim to what is now em- 
braced in the states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 
Thus, there were overlapping titles and the situa- 
tion hopelessly baffled solution. Earnest appeals 
were made by the government, as the only means 
of settling the difficulty and of opening the wil- 
derness to purchasers, that the different states 
relinquish their claims in favor of the national 
authorities. This request having been Complied 
with, the Continental Congress sitting in New 
York, erected the domain of the Northwest Ter- 
ritory and passed an Ordinance for its govern- 
ment on July 13, 1787. 

[1721 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

This charter had its advent during the time 
that the Constitutional Convention was deliberat- 
ing in Philadelphia, which juxtaposition has 
doubtless served to eclipse the merits and im- 
portance of this notable instrument. It deserves 
to stand as one of the three immortal legacies 
from the Revolution, viz.: The Declaration of 
Independence, the Ordinance for the Government 
of the Northwest Territory, and the Constitution 
of the United States. Well has the Ordinance 
been called, "The Magna Charta of the West/' 

Its distinguishing features are its briefness and 
certain sociological requirements, expressed in 
unequivocal language, in marked contrast to the 
voluminous national constitution whose framers 
studiously avoided positive religious and ethical 
references. The Ordinance in its second para- 
graph, as if in haste to eliminate an aggravated 
and chief grievance, prohibited the operation of 
the English law of primogeniture in these words : 

" Be it ordained, That the estates of both resident and 
nonresident proprietors in the said territory, dying intes- 
tate, shall descend to and be distributed among their chil- 
dren, and the descendants of a deceased child, in equal 
parts * * * and where there shall be no children or 
descendants, then in equal parts to the next of kin, in 
equal degree." 

[173] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

Six ''Articles of Compact " were incorporated 
to remain forever binding between the original 
states and the territory, for the purpose among 
others, of " extending the fundamental prin- 
ciples of civil and religious liberty, which form 
the basis upon which these republics, their laws 
and constitutions are erected ; to fix and establish 
those principles as the basis of all laws, constitu- 
tions and governments, which forever hereafter 
shall be formed in the said territory/' 

The essentials in the compacts are as follows : 

Art. 1. No person, demeaning himself in a 
peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever be 
molested on account of his mode of worship or 
religious sentiments, in the said territory. . . 

Art. 2. The inhabitants of the said territory 
shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ 
of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a 
proportionate representation of the people in the 
legislature, and of judicial proceedings accord- 
ing to the course of the common law. . . 

Art. 3. Religion, morality and knowledge, 
being necessary to good government and the hap- 
piness of mankind, schools and the means of edu- 
cation shall forever be encouraged. The utmost 
good faith shall always be observed towards the 

[174] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

Indians; their lands and property shall never be 
taken from them without their consent. * * * 

Art. 4. The said territory, and the states 
which may be formed therein, shall forever 
remain a part of this confederacy of the United 
States of America. * * * 

Art. 5. There shall be formed in the said ter- 
ritory, not less than three nor more than five 
states. * * * 

Art. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor in- 
voluntary servitude in the said territory, other- 
wise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof 
the party shall have been duly convicted. * * * 

The article prohibiting slavery was, perhaps, 
the most far-reaching, important and beneficial 
of the compacts ; after having been made an ordi- 
nance in many states of the land it was finally 
placed as an amendment in the Constitution of 
the United States. 

Though Congress deliberated but the space of 
four days upon the Ordinance, it is considered 
by jurists and publicists of the highest distinction 
as one of the greatest of constitutional declara- 
tions. The appreciations of a few are quoted : 

" Justice Story : ' The laws of Massachusetts, as to the 
rights of persons, property, etc., were made the root or 

12 [ 175 ] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

germ of all our territorial laws east of the Mississippi, by 
being made the material parts of the Ordinance of Con- 
gress for the government of the United States territories 
northwest of the Ohio, and from time to time extended 
to their other territories, as will appear from examining 
the Ordinance itself.' * * * ' To him (Mr. Dane) 
belongs the glory of the formation of the celebrated Ordi- 
nance of 1787, which constitutes the fundamental law of 
the states northwest of the Ohio. It is a monument of 
political wisdom and sententious skillfulness of expres- 
sion. It was adopted unanimously by Congress, accord- 
ing to his original draft, with scarcely the alteration of a 
single word/ 

" Senator Hoar : ' One of the three title deeds of 
American constitutional liberty/ 

" Judge Thomas M. Cooley, after a life spent under 
its beneficent influences, stamped it as immortal for the 
grand results which have followed from its adoption, not 
less than for the wisdom and far-seeing statesmanship 
that conceived and gave form to its provisions. ' No 
charter of government in the history of any people/ says 
he, ' has so completely withstood the tests of time and 
experience. * * * Its principles were for all time. 
* * * It has been the fitting model for all subsequent 
territorial government ,in America/ " 

Charles Moore, in his " The Northwest under 
Three Flags/' says : " Who shall trace the origin 
of the Ordinance! Like a tree, its roots were 

[176] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

deep down in free soil, and its leaves drank nour- 
ishment from an air filled with the makings of 
constitutions. Jefferson had planted and Monroe 
and Rufus King had watered the tender plant." 

The authorship of the Ordinance was claimed 
by Daniel Webster and Justice Story for Nathan 
Dane, of Massachusetts, while Hayne and Ben- 
ton, desiring the honor for the South, held that 
Thomas Jefferson wrote it, and certain leading 
historical works state that he drafted the instru- 
ment. Dane, however, has practically a clear 
title to the distinction, he having been chairman 
of the special committee that reported the Ordi- 
nance to Congress, while Jefferson was absent 
from the country, serving as Minister to France 
(1785-89). Dane was a Harvard graduate, an 
able lawyer and in later years made himself 
further distinguished by publishing a learned 
legal work in nine volumes, entitled "Abridg- 
ment and Digest of American Law." 

But the honor of securing the passage of the 
Ordinance must be divided with Rev. Manasseh 
Cutler, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, a graduate of 
Yale, a man of extraordinary and diversified 
gifts, and active and enterprising in practical and 
political affairs. Besides his theological educa- 

[177] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

tion, he acquired a good knowledge of medicine 
and filled for a considerable time the place of a 
physician as well as minister in his parish; he 
possessed a store of legal information and ex- 
celled as a botanist; added to all this erudition 
was his acquaintance with general science, of 
which he was a diligent student and writer. 

Dr. Cutler having in 1786 become associated 
with a group of men proposing to purchase lands 
northwest of the Ohio river and to settle there, 
was very active in Congress in securing the pas- 
sage of the Ordinance, knowing that it would give 
a basis of law and an element of security to the 
colony. While Mr. Dane as a member of Con- 
gress was active in popularizing the Ordinance 
measure in that body, Dr. Cutler in the lobby was 
exerting all his persuasive powers as a shrewd 
politician to carry it through. The credit has 
been given him of being the author of the social 
features of the instrument, though Mr. Dane is 
said to have been the sole originator of the sec- 
tion prohibiting slavery. 

Dr. Cutler as agent of the Ohio Company hav- 
ing purchased 1,500,000 acres of land in the ter- 
ritory located on the Ohio at the junction with it 
of the Muskingum river, led a party there and 

[178] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

made a settlement at Marietta on April 7, 1788. 
The event of the setting-out of the expedition 
from Dr. Cutler's house with forty-five men in 
December, 1787, has been compared in import- 
ance with the sailing of the " Mayflower." A 
prominent feature of the cavalcade was a canvas- 
covered wagon upon which were inscribed the 
words, " Ohio, for Marietta on the Muskingum," 
indicating that the settlement had a name before 
it had an existence, and even prior to the expedi- 
tion. The name it was to bear, however, was 
natural and appropriate, standing for Marie 
Antoinette, the French queen, who was admired 
throughout the states for her influence in induc- 
ing the king, Louis XVI, to make an alliance 
with the colonists during the Revolution. At a 
later time Dr. Cutler rode to Marietta in a sulkey, 
making the trip of 750 miles in twenty-nine days. 
But he did not prove so good a pioneer on the 
field as he had been in making the preparations 
and in leading the way thither, for, true to his 
scientific predilections, he devoted himself more 
to the study of the prehistoric mounds of the 
vicinity than to the afifairs of the infant settle- 
ment. After a stay of a few weeks he returned 

[179] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

to his home in the East, and the work of carrying 
on the enterprises connected with the building 
up of the colony fell to General Rufus Putnam. 
As superintendent of the Ohio Company, Gen- 
eral Putnam applied himself to the work of estab- 
lishing the community at Marietta, and having 
been a man of wide experience in the handling of 
practical affairs of important public character, 
he made a success of the undertaking. He was 
a cousin of General Israel Putnam and a self- 
made man, who had become distinguished from 
his military and engineering connections with 
the Revolution. He had been a leading spirit in 
the movement to settle the Northwest Territory 
and had presided at the meeting held in Boston 
on March 1, 1786, at which the Ohio Company 
was formed. General Putnam accomplished 
more, at least in the way of continuous service 
in the preliminary agitation and for the settle- 
ment and development of the eastern part of the 
Northwest Territory, of which Marietta was the 
first permanent town, than any other, not except- 
ing Dane and Cutler. In after years he occupied 
a judicial position in the Territory, and under 
the national government held important military 
and civil offices, finally sealing his devotion to the 

r 180] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

home of his adoption by closing his career at 
Marietta on May 1, 1824. 

This sketch would be lacking without a few 
remarks concerning the Western Reserve. As 
has been stated, several of the colonies had been 
granted in their royal charters unlimited bounds 
to the west, even to the Pacific. In 1786 Connec- 
ticut ceded to the United States all her western 
claims except those lands lying in the present 
State of Ohio north of parallel 41° to 42° 2', and 
extending 120 miles beyond the western border 
of Pennsylvania. The reservation was called in 
the early days, " New Connecticut." From its 
western part were set off by the legislature 
500,000 acres for the reimbursement of those 
who had sustained losses through fire and depre- 
dations of the enemy in the Revolution, and 
hence were called " The Fire Lands." Another 
and larger block of the Reserve, consisting 
of about 3,000,000 acres, was disposed of in 
1795 to the Connecticut Land Company for forty 
cents per acre, General Moses Cleaveland becom- 
ing the general agent of the association. In the 
spring of the following year the company sent a 
corps of surveyors with about forty other persons 
to occupy the newly-purchased lands, the route 

[181] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

having been from Schenectady, the starting place 
of the expedition, up the Mohawk river to Oneida 
lake, then to Lake Ontario, on to Lake Erie, and 
thence to their destination. The journey was 
made with privations and hardships. At this time 
there was but a single family living at what is 
now the city of Buffalo, while the lands now occu- 
pied by the State of Ohio were, except for Mari- 
etta and settlements on their eastern border, a 
wilderness country. Five years later the number 
of settlements in the Reserve had increased to 
thirty-two, though no government worthy of the 
name had been inaugurated. It was deemed 
expedient, therefore, to remit the jurisdiction of 
civil affairs to the national government, the State 
of Connecticut maintaining its land claims, from 
the subsequent sale of which it derived its school 
fund. A territorial government was established 
at Marietta in 1788 by General St. Clair, the gov- 
ernor, and in 1800 Connecticut relinquished all 
her political rights to the United States. 

The greatest municipal monument of the 
Western Reserve is the city of Cleveland, laid 
out and founded by Moses Cleaveland in 1796 
as agent of the Connecticut Land Company. 
There is a tradition that in 1830, when the first 

[182] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

newspaper of the city, "The Cleveland Adver- 
tiser/' was making up the forms for its maiden 
issue, that the printer finding that the title of the 
sheet was too long to be accommodated, elimi- 
nated the letter " a " from the name, leaving it 
" Cleveland," which thereafter became the estab- 
lished spelling. Western Reserve University, of 
that city, perpetuates the remembrance of the 
New England influences still potent in Ohio and 
which lend a distinct Connecticut atmosphere to 
her social, educational and religious institutions. 
In this fragmentary review of the history con- 
nected with the acquirement of the Northwest 
Territory, of the birth and character of the Ordi- 
nance for its government, and of the beginnings 
of its settlement, it has been possible to indicate 
but a few of the leading events. Associated 
with the subject are conditions and experiences 
of human life which have disappeared never to 
return — the deep, primeval forest; the elusive, 
treacherous savage; the politic, shrewd and cov- 
etous French ; the American pioneers, pressing on, 
pressing on undaunted, facing danger and hard- 
ship cheerfully; days of romance, ardent hope 
and lust of land; primitive days of the coonskin 
cap, the steel, tinder and flint, the hunting knife 

1 183 ] 



Northwest Territory and Ordinance of 1787 

and the long, unerring rifle; when meditation 
was without opportunity and action first in de- 
mand and valiantly responded to everywhere; 
days of heroism and the steady nerve and the 
invincible heart. Such were the men who 
entered and subdued the Northwest Territory • — 
a Titan race, not only physically, but intellec- 
tually and ethically and spiritually; at the very 
thresholds of the wilderness they erected the 
schoolhouse and the church. Their lives for the 
greater part are forgotten, but they live in the 
noble manhood and womanhood of tens of thou- 
sands who inhabit, and in the great institutions 
which adorn, five shining commonwealths of the 
United States, the foundations of which they 
worthily laid. 



[184] 



TRANSCENDENTALISM 



It is now about a century since the religious 
and philosophical cult known as Transcendental- 
ism developed in New England, to become on the 
part of the majority of Americans a butt of ridi- 
cule, though to create in many of the best minds 
of the country a deep and abiding conviction of 
its truth and value, and to remain forever among 
the people and their institutions as a beneficent 
influence. It was not a new theory, but one 
which in essence had been taught by Plato, and 
having been adopted by the German philosopher 
Kant, had been appropriated and carried into 
England by Coleridge and Carlyle, and in the 
pages of their books transported to the thinkers 
of New England. Though Coleridge's Aids to 
Reflection, 1825, and Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, 
1833, were the most largely influential in intro- 
ducing Transcendentalism into this country, the 
ideas which it embraced percolated in through 
various channels; during the period 1817-25, 
American students returning from the German 
University of Gottingen, Edward Everett, 
among others, professor of Greek literature in 

[185] 



Transcendentalism 



Harvard, first disseminated here a knowledge of 
the writings of Kant and Goethe; in 1825 Dr. 
Charles T. C. Follen, a distinguished German 
scholar, was secured for Harvard as teacher of 
the German language; three years later he was 
given the chair of Ecclesiastical History, and 
was appointed professor of German literature 
in 1830, remaining in this capacity for a term of 
five years. He was a diligent man, contributing 
to magazines, delivering lectures, and having 
prepared for the ministry, was pastor of Unita- 
rian churches. Added to all this propagandism 
of the German language and ideas was the publi- 
cation in the North American Review and 
Christian Examiner of translations of French 
and German writings, in which Transcendental- 
ism was ventilated. 

It is a notable fact that the movement was con- 
fined to eastern New England, for the reason 
that its seeds were first and most prolifically 
sown in and about Boston, and it is still more 
interesting to learn that in no other part of the 
world did this philosophy develop to maturity 
and power, bestowing its full fruition, but in this 
limited territory. In Germany itself, and in Eng- 
land and France, it found no congenial soil for 

[186] 



Transcendentalism 



its propagation, the ideas which it published 
being accepted only by the cultured few, while 
the commonalty, living under the fixed and 
immutable conditions of old and rigid govern- 
ments, were not of a mind to entertain the mystic 
and soaring views of the new philosophy ; but in 
New England, with its free speech and liberal 
institutions, was a favorable field for the fructi- 
fication of this wandering embryonic theory, 
searching through the world for a habitation, 
and it was embraced with avidity by ripe scholars 
and fervent Christians in whose minds and hearts 
it germinated and developed into great propor- 
tions. 

For all things there are appropriate causes 
and it is always interesting to inquire, particu- 
larly in phenomenal cases like this we are con- 
sidering, as to what it may have been. At this 
time there pervaded the English-speaking world 
the material philosophy of Bacon and Locke, 
which held that matter was the essential sphere 
of creation, and that the mind could claim noth- 
ing that was not first derived through the senses 
from the visible surroundings. The utilitarian 
teachings of Benjamin Franklin encouraged this 
view of life, and his sayings, like " Diligence is 

[187] 



Transcendentalism 



the mother of good luck/' were read, approved 
and practiced everywhere in the land, which was 
absorbed in the practical labors of developing a 
new country. Religion and literature were sat- 
urated with this mundane and unaspiring philos- 
ophy, while theology was, as represented in the 
different sects, dead systems of cut, dried and 
labeled specimens of ecclesiastical opinions, 
stern, cold and devoid of any attractive charm 
or sentiment. That real religion was neglected 
and that public worship had largely become a 
mechanical exercise without faith and love as 
essential elements is testified to by the authorita- 
tive writers of that day. It can readily be under- 
stood that in the midst of such conditions the lib- 
eral and inspiring ideas of Aids to Reflection 
and Sartor Resartus were welcomed and appro- 
priated by the cultured and spiritually minded 
young men of New England, who embraced 
these hopeful and attractive views as a new 
evangel, and with consecrated and enthusiastic 
devotion set themselves to define, develop and 
apply to life and religion the Transcendental 
philosophy. 

The utilitarian views entertained generally in 
this country during the first half of the nine- 

[1881 



Transcendentalism 



teenth century may be inferred from the com- 
motion which these fresh ideas created when 
originally introduced among the people, for these 
teachings read to-day seem devoid of any revolu- 
tionary tendency in faith or practice, this philos- 
ophy having since been unconsciously assimilated 
and adopted by the more intelligent classes, and 
the old-time materialistic deadness having been 
sloughed off. As late as 1870, Transcendental- 
ism was still the laughing-stock of many who 
could make nothing of it and who esteemed it but 
the idle vaporings of partially demented persons 
whose writings were outside the pale of practical 
understanding. All this has changed, and 
although the cult has practically been forgotten, 
insensibly the very principles for which it con- 
tended: the wider substitution of the spirit of 
religion for the letter and the law ; the exaltation 
of the higher faculties of the mind and soul above 
the lower sphere of sensual knowledge and prac- 
tice, — are carried out in every institution and 
activity of human life. 

It must be admitted, however, that there were 
grounds for the lack of respect which in its ear- 
lier history prevailed in New England for the 
new philosophy, for among its advocates were 

[189] 



Transcendentalism 



those who carried their ideas to extremes and 
reveled in mystical spheres of thought and imagi- 
nation; there runs, indeed, through all the writ- 
ings of its great teachers this illusive element 
which Coleridge, as one possessing it, thus 
defines : "A mystic is a man who refers to inward 
feelings and experiences, of which mankind at 
large are not conscious, as evidences of the truth 
of any opinions. " Another handicap to the 
growth of the cult was the fact that most of its 
leading sponsors were ministers of the Unitarian 
Church, a denomination which was not popular 
with the masses of the country, yet it is remark- 
able to relate that from this alleged unpromising 
source emanated a national revival of a genuine 
spiritual, evangelical Christianity on the dead 
works of formalism. 

It should be said to the credit of the Tran- 
scendental school of thought, that it not only 
developed in the midst of the prevailing skepti- 
cal influences, but that it withstood later the sub- 
tle, insinuating and ably advanced theories of 
evolution as taught by Darwin, Spencer, Huxley 
and other brilliant scientists, it all having a mate- 
rialistic tendency, threatening at one time to 
undermine the foundations of the Christian 

[190] 



Transcendentalism 



Church; but the ethereal and spiritual truths 
which Transcendentalism had been spreading 
throughout the country held the people to the 
rule of faith, and as time went on, evolution, 
with its mighty array of profound learning, came 
to be seen as a not at all destructive, but a tame 
and even unproved, contention. On the other 
hand, Darwin, according to his own admission, 
believed that " science had nothing to do with 
Christ/' and said that he did " not believe that 
there ever has been any revelation." He also 
states that his former fondness for poetry, music 
and pictures had practically deserted him, a con- 
fession that affords a hint of what his works are 
capable of effecting in the soul of those who 
devote themselves too unreservedly to them. 
And here note should be made of the fact that 
while Darwinism and evolution tend to minimize 
personality and to make of the individual a mere 
cog in the wheel of an ever-turning and irresist- 
ible fate, Transcendentalism, by its emphasis of 
the idea of the ever-developing, godlike character 
in human nature, exalts the soul into a realm of 
illimitable honor, dignity, goodness, happiness, 
power and usefulness. 

13 [ 191 ] 



Transcendentalism 



But the disciples of Transcendentalism erred 
in following their ideas too far and in allowing 
themselves in their enthusiasm to be carried out 
of the paths of the common workaday world; 
many or most of them became recluses, though 
ever in essay, lecture and sermon expressing 
ardent humanitarian and philanthropic views; 
but as a class they refrained from going down 
into the actual arena of reform and mingling in 
the dust, sweat and turmoil of contention, pre- 
ferring to sit on the pleasant upper seats and to 
smilingly observe the combat, while they volun- 
teered wise counsel to the champions of the 
Right. The communistic institution which they 
organized and maintained for several years at 
Brook Farm, segregated in an un-American 
manner from human society, evidences the retir- 
ing and intolerant spirit of its membership. The 
characterization of the Transcendentalists given 
by Father Isaac T. Hecker, an eminent Catholic 
priest, is quoted here. Father Hecker when a 
young man was a member of the Brook Farm 
community, where he served as a baker, remain- 
ing about a year, and afterwards converted to 
the Catholic faith, became the founder of the 
Paulist Fathers. He says: "A Transcendental- 

[192] 



Transcendentalism 



ist is one who has keen insight but little warmth 
of heart ; one who has fine conceits, but is desti- 
tute of the rich glow of love. He is en rapport 
with the spiritual world, unconscious of the celes- 
tial one. He is all nerve and no blood — color- 
less. . . . He prefers talking about love to 
possessing it; as he prefers Socrates to Jesus. 
Nature is his church, and he is his own God." 
Though there was some justification for these 
remarks, they are overdrawn and misleading, 
for these cultured men and women, possessed by 
exalted religious, social and political ideas, could 
not well do otherwise than view with sorrow and 
reprehension the sordid and impoverished spir- 
itual and intellectual life which prevailed around 
them, and entertain a desire to remove from its 
midst; yet, despite this unchristian attitude, the 
Transcendentalists had among their number won- 
derful men, having splendid intellectual gifts, 
high and liberal spiritual endowments, heroic 
fearlessness, whose shining individualities re- 
fused to submit their opinions to the dictation of 
any man. In their day they were scorned, ridi- 
culed and contemned, as clergymen they were 
driven from their charges as obnoxious and mis- 
chievous outcasts from the folds of Christianity, 

[193] 



Transcendentalism 



and is it to be thought strange that they would, 
from a human standpoint, long to hide them- 
selves from the world and its bitterness? But 
these devotees to what they believed to be the 
truth, though they were fallible men with faults 
and extravagances of mind, had the wealth of 
heavenly worth in their lives and preachments, 
though admixed with the waste and dross inci- 
dent to all human activity and rhetoric, and they 
left behind them lasting memorials of help and 
inspiration to posterity. 

Dr. William Ellery Channing may be said to 
be the father of both Unitarianism and Transcen- 
dentalism in the United States, and here it might 
be stated that Unitarianism is really not so de- 
structive an agency as many believe it to be, for it 
stands more to designate a protest against the 
old hard-and-fast theology than as a definite sys- 
tem of religious belief, made up as it is of a wide 
and versatile difference of opinion among its 
members; it is, indeed, a church of great liberty 
of thought. Dr. Channing, though classed as a 
Unitarian, denied that he was a follower of any 
sect, but claimed to be a free lance and a seeker 
after more light; it is, therefore, unfortunate 
that so many have banned his helpful and uplif t- 

[ 194 ] 



Transcendentalism 



ing writings and those of his associated Tran- 
scendentalists, on account of their alleged hereti- 
cal opinions, for these men, with all their short- 
comings, were prophets who should be read by 
all. 

The first great event in the development of the 
Transcendental movement in America occurred 
in 1819, when Dr. Channing preached a sermon 
in Baltimore at the ordination of Rev. Jared 
Sparks, in after years the distinguished histo- 
rian. This discourse, which is a clear and able 
setting forth of the new theology which, more or 
less, has since influenced all denominations, was 
circulated in pamphlets throughout the country. 
Whatever criticisms may be made of it, this 
sermon has the breath of devotion and convic- 
tion, for Channing was above all else sincere and 
of an honest, gentle disposition, a man to whom 
controversy was very distasteful. Though he 
was not, properly speaking, a Transcendentalist, 
he was intimate with the leaders of the move- 
ment, while his teachings though not devoted 
particularly to that end, were yet in their inde- 
pendent spirit, lofty aspirations and spiritual 
zeal, in harmony with that school of philosophy 
and religion. 

[ 195] 



Transcendentalism 



The next epoch-making figure to arise in the 
history of Transcendentalism was Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, called the seer of the cult, a Unitarian 
clergyman, and descended from a line of eight 
Christian ministers. While yet a young man and 
serving as pastor of the Second Unitarian church, 
of Boston, he resigned in 1832 from the ministry 
and thereafter devoted himself to literature and 
lecturing. It is perhaps not generally known that 
his reason for leaving his church was his opinion 
as to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper being 
a permanent institution ; he claimed that this con- 
tention could not be shown from the Scriptures, 
and his parishioners not consenting to discon- 
tinue its observance, he refused longer to min- 
ister to the congregation, a decision which reflects 
no credit on Emerson, inasmuch as a faithful 
pastor in love with his work, would have sub- 
mitted to the administration of an ordinance 
which is so highly prized by the mass of Christian 
people, though he personally considered it unes- 
sential. He was by far the greatest exponent of 
Transcendentalism, and this not from any signal 
intellectual power, but from his mild and lovable 
nature, dreamy and attractive ideas of truth, 
goodness and beauty, his easy, graceful diction 

[196] 



Transcendentalism 



and the many pregnant phrases which he was 
able to coin; as a debater or as an originator of 
profound thought he was a minus quantity, and 
whether designedly or not, he scrupulously 
avoided the statement of any position which 
might afford ground for contradiction and dis- 
pute ; — it is impossible to quarrel with Emerson, 
for he dispenses in a kindly, benignant manner 
his poetic, beautiful and uplifting ideas, almost 
intoxicating the reader with his own mystically 
buoyant nature. Having, therefore, left no gaps 
in his harness through which an enemy's dart 
might penetrate, his philosophy lives on, and 
while not so impressive intellectually as those of 
the great system-makers like Kant, he has more 
readers and perhaps a wider influence. 

In 1838 Emerson gave an address before the 
senior class of Divinity College, Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, in which he deplored the formal- 
ism of the religion and preaching of the day and 
dwelt on the transcendentalism of the individual 
soul, a discourse which was called at the time a 
great innovation, but which now excites no oppo- 
sition or criticism, for if we do not acquiesce 
in the doctrines set forth, we appreciate and 
respect the views and the sincerity of the author. 

[197] 



Transcendentalism 



One paragraph from this famous address is 
quoted as Emerson's own idea of the sphere and 
the method of the prophet : 

"It is very certain that it is the effect of conversation 
with the beauty of the soul, to beget a desire and need to 
impart to others the same knowledge and love. If utter- 
ance is denied, the thought lies like a burden on the man. 
Always the seer is a sayer. Somehow his dream is 
told; somehow he publishes it with solemn joy — some- 
times with pencil on canvas, sometimes with chisel on 
stone ; sometimes in towers and aisles of granite, his soul's 
worship is builded; sometimes in anthems of indefinite 
music ; but clearest and most permanent in words." 

Theodore Parker, of Roxbury, near Boston, 
also a Unitarian clergyman, was one of the 
audience that heard Emerson speak these words, 
and he was encouraged by the address to an- 
nounce similar ideas which were fermenting 
within him. He was an unusually brilliant man 
who from a farm boy became an alumnus of 
Harvard College, attending it only at examina- 
tions, and laboring meantime in the field or em- 
ploying himself in teaching, and who while yet 
a young man had acquired an astonishing fund 
of learning. He was the greatest preacher of 
New England next to Channing, but departed 

[198] 



Transcendentalism 



furthest from the accepted theological beliefs of 
his day, so as to be in a manner banned by the 
Unitarian church and its ministry. He was, 
however, a man of most attractive personality, 
religiously devoted, witty and emotional, a fear- 
less advocate of what he believed to be the truth, 
and w r as the most prominent of the Transcenden- 
talists as a reformer, not hesitating to jeopardize 
his life in a good cause. After listening to Emer- 
son's address, his " instinctive intuitions " clam- 
ored for expression, and when in 1841 he was 
invited to deliver an ordination sermon in Bos- 
ton, he chose for his theme, The Transient and 
Permanent in Christianity, in which discourse he 
held that the permanent dwelt in the ethical and 
spiritual teachings of Christ and that these tran- 
scended the miraculous, — a contention that 
brought him immediately into ill-repute with his 
denomination. 

It has been said of English Transcendentalism 
that Coleridge was its philosopher, Carlyle its 
preacher and man of letters, and Wordsworth 
its poet ; in America it might be held that Emer- 
son was its philosopher, Bushnell its theologian, 
Parker its preacher and Whitman its poet. As 
a thinker and developer of the transcendental 

[199] 



Transcendentalism 



ideas, Horace Bushnell was perhaps the ablest 
of all. A Congregational minister, he in common 
with other forward-looking clergymen of New 
England, went far beyond the borders of the 
ecclesiastical ideas of his denomination and suf- 
fered for his temerity. Whitman exhibits most 
positively that almost arrogant individualistic 
bent of Transcendentalism, — that utter disregard 
of all but divine authority, when it antagonizes 
the high soul of man, in which independent spirit 
this poet revels and which constitutes the weight 
of his message ; but it is a powerful one, of such 
almost superhuman strength that it enthralls the 
reader and infinitely exalts his conception of his 
own soul's greatness and dignity. Thoreau was 
another author who embraced the Transcenden- 
tal creed, or lack of creed; was an intimate 
friend of Emerson, and while living an humble 
hermit life at Walden Pond, cultivated a proud 
and derisive character of mind, making friends 
with mice and chipmunks and despising the ordi- 
nary ideas and employments of human life. Both 
he and Whitman were semi-pagan in their phil- 
osophy, but wonderful in their reverence for the 
honor, dignity, independence and power of their 
own individual souls, — teachings which human 

[200] 



Transcendentalism 



society, cluttered up as it is with so much ad- 
ventitious and distracting concomitants, would 
profit by heeding. 

Though Transcendentalism formulated no set 
system of philosophy or religion, and while no 
real treatises upon it have been written save a 
tract by Emerson and an address by Parker, and 
though no architectural memorial has ever been 
erected to its honor, there is a space of ground 
which was once owned and occupied by its en- 
thusiastic followers, but long since with its pro- 
prietors passed almost into forgetfulness, — 
Brook Farm. Here, a few miles out of Boston 
and upon pleasant meadow and upland, the 
Transcendentalists in the spring of 1841 set up a 
social and agricultural institution, which though 
small in numbers was great in genius and in the 
widespread, beneficent influence which it exer- 
cised. George Ripley, a graduate of Harvard and 
a Unitarian clergyman, was the leader in this 
scheme of introducing a rudimentary paradise 
upon earth, which was begun with a colony of 
only eighteen persons. The community was com- 
posed from first to last of many rare and gifted 
men and women, but the fatal defect of the plan 
was that it did not fulfill the requirement of pure 

[201] 



Transcendentalism 



and undefiied religion, which consists not only 
in keeping oneself unspotted from the world, but 
also in visiting the fatherless and widows in their 
affliction, which latter duty can only be fulfilled 
by living midst the common life of men. Theii 
aims, however, were high though in a manner 
selfish, the constitution which they adopted set- 
ting forth clearly the society's transcendental 
desires and purposes. The document is here 
presented : 

" In order to more effectually promote the great pur- 
poses of human culture; to establish the external rela- 
tions of life on a basis of wisdom and purity; to apply 
the principles of justice and love to our social organiza- 
tion in accordance with the laws of Divine Providence; 
to substitute a system of brotherly cooperation for one 
of selfish competition ; to secure to our children and those 
who may be entrusted to our care, the benefits of the 
highest physical, intellectual and moral education, which 
in the progress of knowledge the resources at our com- 
mand will permit; to .institute an attractive, efficient and 
productive system of industry; to prevent the exercise 
of worldly anxiety, by the competent supply of our neces- 
sary wants ; to diminish the desire of excessive accumula- 
tion, by making the acquisition of individual property 
subservient to upright and disinterested uses ; to guarantee 
to each other forever the means of physical support and 
of spiritual progress; and thus to impart a greater free- 

[202] 



Transcendentalism 



dom, simplicity, truthfulness, refinement and moral dig- 
nity to our mode of life ; — we, the undersigned, do unite 
in a voluntary association and adopt and ordain the fol- 
lowing articles of agreement," etc. 

This is a statement of noble purposes, and 
though the community which adopted it had but 
a brief existence, it is pleasant to reflect that its 
constitution lives on and will never perish; that 
while the organization was premature, impolitic 
and monastic, and for those reasons resulted in 
failure, its principles were of such high and pro- 
gressive quality that they are destined, like, all 
truth and virtue, to eventually be adopted gen- 
erally. Thus, the members of the Brook Farm 
Association were benefactors to mankind; they 
were brave souls living beyond their time, who 
felt, as one of their number, Rev. John S. Dwight, 
expressed it, " We do not properly live in these 
days ; but everywhere with patent inventions and 
complex arrangements are getting ready to live. 
The end is lost in the means ; life is smothered in 
appliances ; we cannot get to ourselves — there 
are so many external comforts to wade through." 

At the end of three years the experiment at 
Brook Farm seemed to have been successful and 

[203 ] 



Transcendentalism 



a prosperous future for it assured; the Farm em- 
braced 208 acres, and the assets of the society 
amounted to about $30,000; the school, which 
attracted students from outlying communities, 
was an established feature, and the association 
was convinced " that their belief in a divine order 
of society had become an absolute certainty." 
The number of those dwelling on the Farm was 
never above one hundred and twenty persons at 
one time, and two hundred would embrace all 
those who were members of the community dur- 
ing the six years that it existed. At the time of 
which we are writing, the Farm and premises 
had been developed, additional buildings erected 
and in every way the association was flourishing; 
but at this juncture (in 1844), it was deemed 
advisable to introduce the French communistic 
plan at Brook Farm, which attractive and plau- 
sible scheme had been widely popularized in this 
country by Mr. Albert Brisbane. The Fourier 
system was put into operation at the Farm in the 
following year, and from that time the prosperity 
of the society began to decline ; it had departed 
somewhat from its original purpose and was 
maintained at a loss; the final scene occurred with 
the burning of one of its principal buildings in 

[204] 



Transcendentalism 



the spring of 1847, and in the fall of the year the 
community ceased to exist. 

Fourierism, which proved the undoing of 
Brook Farm, was perhaps the most enticing com- 
munistic scheme that has ever been designed, 
and caught in its meshes other distinguished 
people besides the members of this association, 
Horace Greeley, among others, who listening to 
the siren voice of Brisbane, its enthusiastic advo- 
cate in this country, became its ardent disciple. 
Greeley was from time to time a visitor at Brook 
Farm, and possibly through his influence and the 
advocacy of Fourierism in a column of The 
Tribune (which Brisbane for a period had at his 
disposal), this plan was adopted there. The doc- 
trines of Fourier had obtained a large following 
in the United States, numbering in 1846 no less 
than about 200,000 persons, and several news- 
papers opposed to the movement began an attack 
upon the new socialistic scheme which proposed 
to revolutionize human society and its institu- 
tions for their betterment throughout the world ; 
Greeley and The Tribune, its chief sponsors, 
replied with zeal and ability, till after a war of 
words extending through six months, the strife 
ended with the victory evidently in the hands of 

[205] 



Transcendentalism 



Greeley's antagonists. This notable but forgot- 
ten debate was afterwards republished in a book. 
Another institution quite as widely known and 
talked of in its day as Brook Farm and Fourier- 
ism, was a periodical issued by that community 
and called The Dial, the quarterly organ of the 
Transcendentalists and a magazine of very high 
standards, devoted to general literature, art, 
science, sociology, philosophy and religion. The 
Dial ran for four years with a circulation never 
reaching to five hundred copies, the first issue, 
with Margaret Fuller as editor, appearing in 
April, 1840. Miss Fuller was a noble and 
extraordinarily brilliant woman, " almost a 
Christian/' of a singular and arrogant personal- 
ity, yet having attractions w 7 hich only her con- 
temporaries who knew her could appreciate. An 
enlightening view of the purposes of the maga- 
zine is obtained through its salutatory, a portion 
of which is quoted : 

" We invite the attention of our countrymen to a new 
design. * * * Many sincere persons in N(ew England 
reprobate that rigor of our conventions of religion and 
education which is turning us to stone, which renounces 
hope, which looks only backward, which asks only such 
a future as the past, which suspects improvement and 

[206] 



Transcendentalism 



holds nothing so much in horror as new views and the 
dreams of youth. No one can converse much with dif- 
ferent classes of society in New England without remark- 
ing the progress of a revolution. It is in every form a 
protest against usage and a search for principles. If our 
Journal share the impulse of the time, it cannot now pre- 
scribe its own course. It cannot foretell in orderly propo- 
sitions what it shall attempt. Let it be one cheerful, 
rational voice amid the din of mourners and polemics. " 

The Dial started with a subscription list of 
but thirty names or more, and throughout its 
career it had a struggling existence, though for 
a part of the time having Emerson for its editor 
and for contributors such able writers as Theo- 
dore Parker, George Ripley, James Freeman 
Clarke and William Ellery Channing. Its musi- 
cal critic was John S. D wight, while Christopher 
P. Cranch served as editor of the art department. 
All these were clergymen whose souls aspired 
beyond the boundaries of the formal religious 
ideas of their day, and all of them afterwards 
had distinguished careers. In the four now 
scarcely-opened volumes of this unique and bril- 
liant periodical are embalmed the rare prose and 
poetry of those gifted men and women, who lived 
not for the more or less selfish ends which prompt 

14 [ 207 ] 



Transcendentalism 



the most of humanity, but for ideals. At the 
time of The Dial's suspension, George William 
Curtis wrote to a friend what might stand as its 
benediction. He said: " The Dial stops. Is it 
not like the going out of a star? Its place was 
so unique in our literature ! All who wrote and 
sang for it were clothed in white garments ; and 
the work itself so calm and collected, though 
springing from the same undismayed hope which 
furthers all our best reforms. But the intellec- 
tual worth of the times will be told in other ways, 
though The Dial no longer reports the progress 
of the day." 

No wonder that Curtis deplored the demise of 
The Dial, for in its pages as a fledgeling he had 
first tried his literary wings; here too Thoreau 
and Charles A. Dana, the great editor of The 
New York Sun, together with other authors, 
began their literary careers which ever reflected 
credit on Brook Farm and its periodical. 

The consideration of Transcendentalism, 
though foreign to the spirit of the day, is never- 
theless a study that is sorely needed ; if the good 
people of Brook Farm in their enthusiastic de- 
votion flew on too wide a tangent in the direction 
of the ideal, we of this generation are even more 

[208] 



Transcendentalism 



deluded in our deflection towards the material, 
and of the two errors, that of the Transcenden- 
talists was the lesser, for at least their aims were 
very high. Their great mistake lay in neglecting 
the actual world and in segregating themselves 
from general society ; — they provided no ballast, 
and hence soared too high. But their hermit-like 
predilection had an element of reason, though 
carried too far ; like the life in monasteries, there 
was in their similar practice at Brook Farm a 
modicum of truth, for it is to the quiet and self- 
contained soul that wisdom speaks, and not so 
much to him burdened and absorbed with the 
things of practical life; he must dispossess him- 
self of the crowds of worldly thoughts and sights, 
and render his mind still and neutral, that his 
higher intellectual and spiritual faculties may 
have room and opportunity to exercise them- 
selves. " Be still," say the Scriptures, " and 
know that I am God ! " 



[209] 



TELEPATHY OR THOUGHT-TRANS- 
FERENCE 



The purpose of this article is to examine in a 
practical and unbiased way the claims of tele- 
pathy to credence and to inquire concerning its 
history and development to the present day. It 
is an exceedingly wide, diversified and compli- 
cated study running down under various guises 
from remotest time, ever associated with super- 
stition, fraud and charlatanry and remaining 
after centuries of controversy an undecided ques- 
tion with the mass of the people. Innumerable 
detailed accounts of instances of thought-trans- 
ference are on record, which if true would sub- 
stantiate its authenticity, but it has been found 
that in careful examinations of these cases by 
scientific and disinterested investigators that the 
evidence is not conclusive. The incredulous at- 
titude of the public is due largely to the fakers, 
u professors " and " doctors " who simply for 
gain parade in advertisements, and as show-men 
in public halls, alleging themselves to be hypno- 
tizers, clairvoyants and mind readers. From the 

[210] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

Fox sisters of Rochester, N. Y., with their 
" Rochester rappings," modern spiritualism took 
its rise in 1849, which, though from the first 
regarded with suspicion, spread with incredible 
rapidity throughout the United States and 
Europe; it has numbered among its followers 
many distinguished persons in spite of the fact 
that the frauds practiced under its name have 
been legion. Also, the English Society for 
Psychical Research announced in 1885 that the 
messages alleged by Madame Helena Blavatsky, 
who introduced the cult of Th'eosophy into this 
country, to have been received from the dead, 
were fraudulent and unworthy of belief. It was 
in fact the claims of the followers of this woman 
to occult powers of mind that led to the founda- 
tion of this society in 1882, a learned organiza- 
tion made up of some of the most distinguished 
scientists and which has accomplished a series of 
investigations comprising hundreds of cases of 
so-called telepathic and kindred phenomena, and 
filling upwards of fifty volumes with their re- 
ports. While thought-transference is not as yet 
an established scientific fact, the weight of evi- 
dence seems to preponderate for such a conclu- 
sion, a very important testimony being that so 

[211] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

able and scholarly an association as the Society 
for Psychical Research would not have had a 
being and persevered for years in its labor, were 
there not a strong presumption that such occult 
elements of mind have an existence. 

That telepathy has had so little competent 
study outside of the society just referred to is 
partially due to the fact that so far it has pos- 
sessed no practical value, and thus remains in 
the realm of curiosity or sentimental gratifica- 
tion, while another handicap has been the oppo- 
sition of the Christian church to occultism in all 
its branches. A sermon listened to years ago is 
recalled in which the minister, having reviewed 
the claims of spiritualism to belief, closed by 
acknowledging them, but giving as his opinion 
that the manifestations were of the devil, a con- 
clusion which, in the light of the many nervous 
and mental wrecks which are made through 
dabbling in them, seems a fair decision. For 
those of excitable sensibilities, the result of flirt- 
ing with these imponderable and mysterious 
forces is generally to render them unsuspecting 
dupes and credulous followers of deceitful per- 
sons seeking merely their money. Another dis- 
couraging feature in the consideration of 

[ 212 1 



Telepathy or Thought -Transference 

psychical study is its mixed and complicated 
character, which we hope to be able somewhat 
to clear up further on; thus, telepathy, the sub- 
liminal-self, the hypnotic sleep and spiritualism 
are all intimately related and interdependent. 

That psychical science is still in its infancy is 
considered of providential arrangement, for in 
view of the evil purposes for which it might be 
employed by people of a low grade of ethical 
development, it would prove destructive of human 
society, perhaps, were its unlimited powers to be 
known and practiced by unprincipled men; thus, 
as an illustration, one writer has imagined the 
awful consequences which would have ensued 
had dynamite been invented and in the hands of 
the ancient barbarians. Further, were the truth 
of thought-transference established, both as to its 
operation in this world and on into the next, in- 
terest in this life would languish and die in the 
view of the present and future spiritual felicities, 
while the enterprises of human existence, in the 
workings of which the race ever develops strong 
and worthy character, would cease to operate. 

The commonest manifestation of telepathic in- 
fluence is that exhibited when a person, having 
been for a few moments under the gaze of an- 

[213] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

other, turns his eyes in unconscious response 
towards the individual who has been observing 
him. This strange and unexplainable power has 
been noted by everyone, and though a simple pro- 
cedure which may easily be tested, is nevertheless 
a telepathic phenomenon. Another very fre- 
quently occurring evidence of inexplicable mental 
prompting is the simultaneous writing of letters, 
the two correspondents being moved to indite a 
message to the other at the same time, the notes 
meeting and passing each other in their transit. 
Still another common indication of the working 
of this mysterious influence is the ability some- 
times to know the next words that a person shall 
utter, or the circumstance that shall immediately 
occur, an occult power to which many no doubt 
can attest from their own experience. Here is a 
present and personal instance somewhat along 
this line: while searching for a certain volume 
needed in the preparation of this article, I inad- 
vertently took up a memorandum book in which 
were notes on telepathy that I had jotted down 
months ago and had forgotten, and the question 
presented itself, Was I not led to this source of 
information through the activity of my subliminal 
(or under the threshold) mind? 

[214] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

Psychic phenomena are of the most ancient 
record; hypnotism was practiced by the priests 
of the Chaldeans and alleged cures affected, while 
of those in the hypnotic sleep it was averred that 
they were able to foretell future events ; Assyria 
had her Magi, Greece and Rome their oracles, 
Socrates obeyed a "voice," which was his 
monitor, Swedenborg claimed to have held dis- 
course with heavenly intelligences for a period 
of thirty years and is said to have described a 
fire that was devastating a city many miles away. 
In recent times and in our own country a re- 
markable demonstration of supernatural mental 
power, which may still be perused, was the ex- 
perience of a youth named Andrew Jackson 
Davis, born at Blooming Grove, Orange county, 
New York, in 1826. Reared in poverty and 
ignorance, having had practically no schooling, 
he exhibited in the hypnotic state at the age of 
sixteen remarkable clairvoyant capacities, aston- 
ishing those who heard him discourse on scientific 
subjects with scholarly understanding, while in 
his natural self being an ignoramus with only 
ordinary mentality. In 1845 he began, being in 
the clairvoyant condition, to dictate a book which 
he called The Principles of Nature; Her Divine 

[215] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind; a wonder- 
ful work considering its source, — at least, such 
is the opinion of his admirers, and it has made the 
author famous in spiritualistic history, as the 
forerunner of modern spiritualism. It should be 
said here that still earlier preparation had been 
made for the introduction of this belief, by the 
prevalance in England and America of a wide- 
spread interest in the discussion of animal mag- 
netism or mesmerism, to which phase of psycho- 
logic mystery it is now convenient to revert. 

Many remarkable cures were made in England 
and Ireland in about the middle of the seventeenth 
century through the agency of animal magnetism 
communicated by stroking the persons of the 
patients, the efficacy of the treatment being en- 
dorsed by the highest scientific authority, but it 
was not till a century later, when Dr. Frederick 
A. Mesmer, of Vienna, reintroduced it to the 
world that it came to be a permanent therapeutic 
agent. Born in 1733, Mesmer studied medicine 
and having obtained his degree discovered in his 
practice that he was able to produce curative 
efifects by stroking patients with magnets. At a 
later period, observing a Swiss priest making 
cures by simply stroking with empty hands, he 

[216] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

abandoned the use of magnets, calling the agency 
which he employed animal magnetism, which 
afterwards came to bear his name, as mesmerism. 
He located in Paris in 1778, where he created 
great public interest and excitement in the new 
and mysterious method by which he effected cures ; 
through his success in healing and the publication 
of his books he made himself of world-wide dis- 
tinction. He employed, however, as an adjunct 
to his main reliance on animal magnetism, a good 
deal of trumpery in order to impress the minds of 
his patients with a sense of mystery, which he 
conceived would add to the efficacy of his treat- 
ment. Deep silence, gentle music, expressive 
odors, mirrors and dim lights characterized his 
rooms, while Mesmer himself went among his 
patients arrayed in fantastic garments, making 
passes and in other appropriate ways ministering 
to them. Though a large part of this procedure 
was of course mere mummery, there remained an 
element of real therapeutic value, and altogether 
many wonderful cures were accomplished, while 
great excitment prevailed throughout Paris as a 
result. The medical profession, however, rose 
in opposition to him and his treatment, while the 
government, so great was the controversy, ap- 

[217] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

pointed a commission to inquire into the merits 
of the strange remedial agent being employed by 
Mesmer. In due time it reported that while 
salutary effects were produced by his method, 
they were owing mainly to the imagination of 
the patients. This finding was the deathblow to 
Mesmer's career, and animal magnetism fell into 
the hands of charlatans while he, denounced as 
an imposter, retired to Switzerland where he 
died in 1815. 

in 1813, Deleuze, a French scholar, published 
his Critical History of Animal Magnetism, in 
which he endorsed the potency of this healing 
agent, and four years later the Prussian govern- 
ment indirectly recognized it by prohibiting other 
than physicians from administering such treat- 
ment ; but the greatest triumph which mesmerism 
ever gained was in 1831, when the Royal 
Academy of Medicine, of Paris, through a com- 
mission announced without a dissenting vote that 
the claims made for it by Mesmer were substan- 
tially valid. It was this favorable report which 
introduced mesmerism to the attention of the 
English-speaking world. 

To follow the history of animal magnetism 
further would be foreign to our purpose, which 

[218] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

is to learn of that branch of the study which deals 
with thought-transference and the subliminal- 
self, the latter being that department of the mind 
which, according to Webster's definition of sub- 
liminal is, " Existing in the mind, but below the 
surface or threshold of consciousness; that is, 
existing as feeling rather than as clear ideas. " 
This faculty or existence is believed to have a 
being unknown to the ordinary or supraliminal- 
mind and to embrace the accumulated stores of 
inherited and acquired tendencies, forgotten ex- 
periences, readings, conversations and incidents 
without number, with lapsed mental impressions 
and imaginings; it has its dislikes and prefer- 
ences, different sometimes from those of the 
01 dinary-self , possesses abilities far beyond the 
capacities of the natural faculties of the same in- 
dividual, and is able to foretell future conditions 
and events; for the activities of life have buried 
in their rush vast stores of thought which com- 
pose infinitely more than that retained in the 
workaday mind, and concerning which the latter 
take no cognizance. Now, the strange and inter- 
esting claim is made that in the hypnotic sleep 
induced by animal magnetism, this subliminal- 
mind is liberated, comes to the surface and ex- 

[219] 



Telepatny or Thought-Transference 

hibits itself in the wonderful manner described. 
Frequently this subliminal-self manifests its pres- 
ence in dreams while the supraliminal-self is lost 
in sleep, though thought-transference is said on 
a great deal of authority to be accomplished in the 
natural or waking condition; but in the hypnotic 
state when the ordinary mind has thus been dis- 
posed of, the subliminal mind develops an extra- 
marvelous power evidenced by divulging the con- 
tents of letters, observing objects and circum- 
stances at far-distant places, foretelling events, 
translating unknown languages, — in short, a vast 
accumulation of astonishing instances might be 
cited in this field, and seemingly trustworthy. 

That such a department of mental activity 
really exists independent of the ordinary mind 
may be proved by the common experience of all; 
for instance, using a familiar illustration, few 
persons can state the positions of the letters and 
characters on the typewriter though in daily use 
by them, yet the locations of all are so well stored 
up in the subliminal-mind that they are uncon- 
sciously but rapidly and readily found in the pro- 
cess of writing. Other automatic exercises of 
this kind will occur to the reader, while the term 
itself is suggestive of automatic hand writing, or 

[220 1 



Telepathy or Thought-Transfer ence 

inditing with a planchette or other suitable con- 
trivance, through which telepathic messages are 
said to be transmitted. 

Though the Christian church has generally as- 
sumed an antagonistic attitude towards the claims 
of telepathy, as unfounded and mischievous in 
tendency, subvertive of genuine faith and prac- 
tice, it has been observed by different students of 
thought-transference that there exists a substan- 
tial ground of union between religion and this 
philistine belief. It is argued that the Bible is a 
network of telepathic communications from the 
Divine Being, and that without this fundamental 
source of power, instruction and inspiration, it 
would cease to be a perfect guide in life. Further, 
man having been created in God's intellectual and 
spiritual image, he has been endowed with more 
or less rudimentary telepathic capacity of mind, 
and while in this respect as in mental and spirit- 
ual gifts certain persons are highly equipped, 
there also exists a great inequality as to thought- 
transference, some individuals having little en- 
dowment of this kind, and others being so highly 
furnished as to be called "sensitives." 

These views are highly elaborated in a volume 
issued a few years ago (1913) entitled, Telepathy' 

[ 221 1 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

of the Celestial World, by Horace C. Stanton, D. 
D., the author accepting as proved the authen- 
ticity of telepathic communications. His ex- 
planation of the process of a particular transmis- 
sion is interesting. He says : 

" The visual impression of a human figure ,is received 
by the organs of sight (in the peripheral system) ; and is 
transmitted to the brain (the central system). 

" In the telepathic transmission of a personal vision, 
this order is just reversed. From the mind of A there 
is flashed into the mind of P the idea of the personality 
of A. Then in the mind of P there develops a vision of 
A, like a dream figure. But this does not come through 
P's senses; it begins in P's mind. If he is asleep, quite 
likely the vision will remain simply a dream figure. But 
if he is awake or becomes awake, that vision may stimu- 
late first his brain (the inward nervous system), and then 
the outward nervous system. So the latter works in a 
reverse way. A visual impression is now made on these 
outer organs and the vision seems to become externalized. 
P seems to see A standing in front of him." 

The author presents an attractive and inspir- 
ing view of the happy conditions in the future 
world of blessedness, in which the telepathic 
capacity shall be fully developed, widened, 
strengthened and purified, and the soul enabled 
thus to visit all places and realms instantaneously 

[222] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

and to commune with kindred spirits everywhere 
at will. He says enthusiastically : 

" For the intercourse of radiant beings in the 
other world, separated by whatever distance, 
wonderful provision has been made. Words that 
flew out across the void, would be drowned in the 
ether sea. The sunbeam would faint, and then 
forget its errand. The lightning would grow 
dizzy and expire. But through calm and storm, 
through sunshine and through cloud, over the 
main and over the mountain, through abyss of 
darkness and abyss of light, past stars and suns 
and mighty constellations — the telepathic mes- 
sage comes. It faints not nor is weary. It has 
the right of way before all created things. Noth- 
ing in earth or heaven disturbs its flight. For 
its wings are the thoughts of God." 

An interesting question arises in the considera- 
tion of thought-transference : Is it of a vestigial 
or rudimentary character; that is, is it the relic 
of an early stage in the development of the race, 
or is it the infantile manifestation of a faculty 
of the mind which is destined to evolve into un- 
imagined power and enjoyment? This latter idea 
is a more attractive and hopeful one than the 
other, which suggests that the subliminal-mind 

15 [ 223 ] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transfer ence 

is a trace of the primitive means of communica- 
tion employed by men in prehistoric times as a 
substitute for the unattained invention of lan- 
guage, and through lack of use become ordinarily 
unrecognizable. 

This article has attempted to do little more than 
to point out a few of the landmarks of this vast 
and interesting subject, one to which in view of 
its importance, so little real attention has been 
given by competent students. The books which 
have been consulted by the writer abound in testi- 
monies which, were they fully confirmed, would 
forever set at rest any doubt as to the reality of 
thought-transmission ; but unfortunately such in- 
stances have been so frequently found valueless, 
that the subject remains vague and confused, 
though no candid reader can study it long with- 
out being convinced that truth is present though 
contaminated with error. Indeed, it would seem, 
arguing from analogy, that with discoveries of 
a marvelous character constantly being made in 
the material world,- — the permanent recording of 
the human voice in word and song to remain in- 
definitely available, the wireless communication 
of messages over great distances, — it would seem 
that these and other remarkable evolutions in the 

[224] 



Telepathy or Thought-Transference 

sphere of matter should be attended and equaled 
by the eagerly coveted development in the power 
and range of the mind, which advancement is per- 
haps betokened in the struggling idea of 
telepathy. 

Never was conception of this kind more in de- 
mand than in this period of rank materialism 
When almost the only thought which commands 
attention is that of the practical mind, and when 
the high and profound realms of intellectual and 
spiritual exploration are for the most part neg- 
lected, with the subliminal-self sepulchred in our 
breasts, dead to its heavenly possibilities and en- 
joyments. Happily there may await a not far 
distant day when an understanding and develop- 
ment of this but partially appreciated faculty will 
bring to the race wonderful advancement in pure 
and undefiled religion and in all temporal affairs 
as well. 



[225 



JUST ORDINARY PEOPLE 



The scanning of the daily press, teeming with 
accounts of strikes, robberies, profiteering and 
universal unrest, is not an encouraging employ- 
ment for those who trust in the efficacy and per- 
petuity of this American Republic. But there is 
a reassuring side to the situation that may not 
have occurred to all of us: the stability and de- 
pendability of just ordinary people. 

It is observable that the headlines of the news- 
papers deal almost exclusively with the doings of 
the upper and lower strata of society and that 
they have little to say concerning the vast so-called 
middle class, whom we are prone almost to forget 
in the rush and confusion of passing events ; for 
they are not making speeches and writing articles 
telling exactly how things are to be done ; neither 
are they engaged in riots ; as to robbing and being 
robbed, they cut no figure at all. It is upon this 
untold multitude of quiet, industrious men and 
women that our confidence may serenely rest ; in 
the shock of revolution, should it ever occur, they 
will save the land and its institutions. In such 

[226] 



Just Ordinary People 



an unhappy event, great leaders would rise from 
the common people as if springing out of the 
ground, thoroughly equipped and furnished for 
the emergency, and they would become saviors of 
their country, writing their names imperishably 
on the page of history. 

Just ordinary people are a distinct species of 
our population, neither rich nor poor, learned nor 
unlearned, proud nor humble, gay nor sad, fash- 
ionable nor unfashionable — in all respects a 
golden mean; they have let us say, an old-gold 
finish that doesn't dazzle but wears well I have 
one of them particularly in mind ; a retired farmer 
living next door. Of a pleasant morning he 
walks leisurely down to the post office and return- 
ing, looks over the daily paper with its grist of 
thrillers; after a time the sheet slips from his 
grasp and flutters to the floor while the reader, 
not at all agitated, lapses into a comfortable doze. 
" Uncle Bill," as we call him, has the plain practi- 
cal wisdom of just ordinary people. 

"I guess it'll come out allright," he says; 
" they's allers got to be about so much stewin* 
whether it's meat, veg'tables, politics or gov'- 
ment." 

[ 227 ] 



Just Ordinary People 



Uncle Bill would find it difficult to clothe his 
ideas in suitable words, but instinctively and at 
a glance he surveys the people of this village and 
surrounding communities, realizing that they are 
a part only of a vast aggregation of just such 
ordinary people living everywhere throughout 
the country, who like himself are true Ameri- 
cans, quiet, strong, sensible and standing im- 
movable upon the principles cherished by the 
founders and preservers of this Republic. 

Just ordinary people are of indispensable use- 
fulness as the source of leaders for political, edu- 
cational and religious activities ; from their homes 
go forth men and women to adorn the higher 
walks of life, if I may judge from my own obser- 
vation in this township of northern New York. 
From its farms have gone not a few who are to- 
day notable figures in the learned professions, — 
law, medicine, theology — some serving as edu- 
cators in the higher institutions of learning, and 
as missionaries in foreign parts. 

The explanation of this liberal contribution of 
leading men and women from so seemingly un- 
promising a source may be found in the humble 
virtues, industrious habits and unconventional 
methods of thought which generally prevail in 

[228] 



Just Ordinary People 



rural communities. These young men and women 
started in life unfettered by artificial ideas, and 
with the vigor of original minds and strong bodies 
carried the abilities, the independent spirit and 
the excellencies of just ordinary people, rein- 
forced with the culture of college halls, into the 
presence of tens of thousands in widely separated 
parts of the world. 

Of the three classes into which our people 
readily admit of being divided, the middle section 
stands as the conservative portion, serving as a 
shock absorber to the immature policies and half- 
truth agitations which are ever emanating from 
the lower strata of society, and for the arrogant 
and predatory activities of the higher. Just ordi- 
nary people thus occupy the pivotal portion of our 
national teeter-board, and with the see-sawing 
members at the extremities conspicuously making 
faces and throwing things at each other, the 
middle portion serve to maintain as a fulcrum a 
good and safe balance and to preserve order, 
though itself unnoticed and receiving no credit. 
Uncle Bill looks at the situation in the same way, 
but under a somewhat dififerent light: 

" It's allers a good plan," he says, " to put for 
the middle one of a three-hoss team, a stiddy old 

[229] 



Just Ordinary People 



animal, and the skittish nags on each side of him ; 
vaFable lives and big expense have been saved 
by keerf ulness of this kind." 

We need, of course, men and women of bril- 
liant parts — poets, essayists, orators, states- 
men, etc., but it has been frequently shown that 
such capacities do not always accompany an 
ability to take a common-sense view of a simple 
proposition ; and the spectacle is ever before us of 
those distinguished for achievements in the higher 
realms of thought who in matters that could be 
quickly and properly decided by an ordinary per- 
son, betray an astonishing lack of understanding. 
This singular intellectual limitation is due, per- 
haps, to a mental law of equalization which com- 
mands that if any faculty of the mind be highly 
developed, it must be so at the expense of other 
departments of thought; but just ordinary people 
are not afflicted in this manner — they go to ex- 
tremes in nothing. In love, joy, sorrow they make 
little demonstration, and when they come to die, 
they do so with submission and quiet dignity. It 
matters little whether success or failure has been 
their experience, they preserve a calm and cheer- 
ful demeanor and go forward in the path of life 
ignorant of the fact that they, perhaps, are ex- 

[230] 



Just Ordinary People 



hibiting a noble heroism and rare chivalry of 
character that kings might envy. 

Just ordinary people particularly shine in the 
matrimonial sphere ; while men and women of 
more highly organized minds and sentiments are 
apt to see Venuses and Adonises quite frequently, 
these plain people love moderately and long, 
rather than passionately and for a day. They 
have, of course, domestic " words/' but they ven- 
erate and honor their marriage vows and do not 
hurry away to the divorce courts on every little 
provocation, and as the years come and go, with 
man, wife and children fighting out and living out 
the problems, difficulties and disagreements of 
family life, the virtues are born and developed 
which constitute just ordinary people the bulwark 
of the land. 



[231] 



THE CLASSICS OF AGRICULTURE 



There was a time, and that not long ago, when 
it might have been doubted if there existed any 
classical writings with agriculture as the subject, 
so commonplace and uneventful was that occu- 
pation considered; but now, when a movement 
something akin to a revolution is in progress — 
a reversal of interest and purpose from the city 
to the country, — it may be easily admitted that 
such eminent literature may really have an ex- 
istence. The day may yet arrive when to be the 
proprietor of a fine farm and mansion, and to 
dwell quietly and independently on one's own 
manor, may be considered the ideal way of living. 
It was thus in England and Scotland a century 
ago, when Sir Walter Scott toiled with his pen to 
make Abbotsford a noble rural estate, desiring 
that possession more than the fame of his author- 
ship, of which profession he was somewhat 
ashamed. 

The Works and Days of Hesiod is a poem that 
has the distinction of being not only among the 
first writings that have come down to us from the 

[232] 



The Classics of Agriculture 



remote centuries, but the first literature devoted 
to agriculture. Hesiod was a Greek farmer and 
lived, a contemporary of Homer, in the ninth 
century before Christ. The poet had a scapegrace 
brother named Perses, for whose benefit Works 
and Days seems to have been written, in hope of 
restoring him to habits of thrift and industry. 
Hesiod's lines are for the most part prosaic, as 
might be expected from the unattractive character 
of the neighborhood where he dwelt. He says, 
alluding to his father having located here : 

In Ascra's wretched hamlet, at the feet 
Of Helicon he fixed his humble seat : 
Uncongenial clime — in wintry cold severe 
And summer heat, and joyless through the year. 

Though some fine passages may be found in 
Hesiod, he is for the greater part uninteresting, 
abounding in commonplace advice, ridiculous 
omens and forgotten superstitions. 

The Roman people in their best days, before 
wide conquests and vast wealth had operated to 
corrupt them, were devoted to agriculture and 
such occupation was considered desirable by the 
best citizens. Cato, the Censor, who lived about 
two centuries before Christ and who hated and 

[233] 



The Classics of Agriculture 



opposed, in his rough and unconventional man- 
ner, the influx of eastern ideas and customs, 
naturally was a disciple of the soil, and he wrote 
a book on the subject of farming. Cato's work, 
however, is dull reading, being devoid of any 
element of fancy or sentiment. The following 
excerpt will convey an idea of it: (A landlord 
is giving instruction to his tenant.) 

" He should know how to do every farm task and 
should do it often, without exhausting himself. If he 
does this he will know what is in the minds of the family 
(slaves) and they will work more contentedly. Besides, 
if he works he will have less desire to stroll about, and 
be healthier and sleep better. He should be the first to 
get up and the last to go to bed; should see that the 
country house is locked up, that each one is sleeping 
where he belongs and that the cattle are fed." 

Marcus Terentius Varro, a remarkably pro- 
lific Roman writer of the first century before 
Christ, was the author of a work on agriculture 
in three books, an interesting feature of which 
consists of the foreword being inscribed to his 
wife, Fundania. He treats of the entire round of 
farm topics and touches on the side issues of fish 
and fishing, hunting, bees and watchdogs. Varro 
was a learned man, but he did not consider these 

[234] 



The Classics of Agriculture 



subjects beneath him, though we may easily 
imagine that Fundania encouraged him to honor 
them with his mighty pen. It is unnecessary to 
say that Varro's work has become valueless for 
practical purposes. 

Vergil, the great Latin author (born B. C. 70), 
was perhaps the most conspicuous poetic genius 
who ever devoted his art to the honoring of agri- 
culture; his Georgics, consisting of four books 
taken up respectively with farming, trees, cattle 
and bees, will ever be admired by scholars for 
their literary grace and beauty. Over the plain 
and unromantic occupation of husbandry he has 
cast the airy drapery of poetic radiance, until the 
farm and the farmer are made to appear as the 
ideal home and the happiest employment. Vergil 
occupied himself seven years in the writing of 
the Georgics, and so well did he do his work that 
after nineteen centuries it is still read and 
admired. 

The first work on agriculture that appeared in 
England was published in 1534, an English Judge 
by the name of Fitzherbert being the author. This 
old treatise is remarkable in that though compris- 
ing but one hundred pages, it is still an excellent 
manual of general farming. The author had 

[235] 



The Classics of Agriculture 



profited by forty years experience and was 
thoroughly acquainted with his subjects. The 
antiquated spelling in his book seems now very 
curious and lends an antique and interesting 
flavor to his observations. Here is a passage: 

, "An housbande can not well thryve by his corne with- 
out he have cattell, nor by his cattell without corne. And 
bycause that shepe, in myne opynyon, is the mooste 
profytablest cattell that any man can have, therefore, I 
pourpose to speake fyrst of shepe." 

Many an ambitious author and publicist in 
Fitzherbert's day dreamed of and labored for 
fame and is now forgotten, while this plodding 
old countryman with his hundred pages of prac- 
tical farm-instructions has remained before the 
world for upwards of four centuries and is still 
consulted. 

Jethro Tull, an Englishman who lived in the 
earlier part of the eighteenth century was an era- 
maker in agriculture, though his insistence that 
plant life depended not at all on fertilizers except 
as looseners of the soil, the minute particles of 
which he held to be only essential, brought his 
other really valuable ideas and inventions into 
disrepute. Tull introduced the method of frequent 
cultivation of growing crops, his purpose, how- 

[236] 



The Classics of Agriculture 



ever, being merely to pulverize the soil and to thus 
render it more available to be appropriated; he 
invented the seed-drill and the threshing machine, 
and was the pioneer of patient investigation and 
practical experience in husbandry. He brought 
the phrase, "Art of agriculture," to have a 
meaning, while his active and fertile mind made 
the path in which a system worthy of the expres- 
sion might be constructed. In his day he was con- 
sidered a visionary and an impractical man, and 
while afflicted with disease and yet endeavoring 
to prosecute his improvements, his men would not 
only neglect to follow his directions, but would 
purposely injure the ingenious implements and 
machines which he had contrived. 

Another great light of agriculture was Arthur 
Young, an Englishman who was born in 1741 
and who was the author and compiler of a mam- 
moth work on farming extending through forty- 
five volumes, entitled, The Annals of Agriculture. 
Among those who contributed articles to the work 
was George III., the King, who signed himself 
" Ralph Robinson." Young went about on horse- 
back, visiting France and Ireland and noting 
down everything that he considered of value to 
English farmers. He was an enthusiastic lover 



[237] 



The Classics of Agriculture 



of the soil, a painstaking experimenter, who dis- 
covered some of the rudiments of agricultural 
chemistry, and was above all a popularizer of his 
chosen calling. Moreover, he paved the way for 
another and a greater pathfinder. 

That agriculture arrived at the dignity of a 
science was due to the genius of Sir Humphrey 
Davy, who in 1813 in his Elements of Agricul- 
tural Chemistry, published in England, treated 
of soils, plants and fertilizers in a systematic and 
scientific manner. This work was one of the 
greatest contributions to the advancement of agri- 
culture that has ever been written. 

It would be very difficult to select from the host 
of later books on agriculture those worthy to rank 
as classics in that department of literature, and 
hence without attempting to arrive at a perfectly 
satisfactory judgment I will only cite Fruits, 
Flowers and Farming, 1859, by Henry Ward 
Beecher. It is a singular fact that the author of 
this unique, interesting and even practically valu- 
able book knew nothing of husbandry from actual 
experience. The young minister, long before he 
had won distinction, took up for diversion the 
study of Loudon's and other works of a similar 
character, and thus equipped, furnished an agri- 

[238] 



The Classics of Agriculture 



cultural paper with a series of articles which long 
after were resurrected by an enterprising pub- 
lisher and issued in book form. Its many topics 
are briefly treated and handled in an easy and 
familiar manner with no attempt at literary dig- 
nity or finish, but the book derives no small part 
of its charm from this very spontaneity of style. 
It gains additional interest from the sage, humor- 
ous and ethical offshoots which from time to 
time unexpectedly appear in its pages. This is 
one of them : " The best stock a man can invest 
in is the stock of a farm ; the best shares are plow- 
shares, and the best banks are the fertile banks 
of the rural stream: the more these are broken, 
the better dividends they pay." 



16 [ 239 ] 



AMERICAN MAGAZINES, PAST AND 
PRESENT 



Benjamin Franklin, among other distinctions, 
has that of having originated in Philadelphia in 
1741 the first American magazine; it was a 
monthly and was called The General Magazine 
and Historical Chronicle, and ran for six months, 
when it ceased to exist. Though the first number 
of Bradford's Magazine, Philadelphia, appeared 
a few days earlier, the idea had been borrowed 
from Franklin. From this time on for a century 
and more, magazines came and went, nearly all of 
them having but a brief period of life, while men 
of real genius were ever ready to immolate them- 
selves on the altar of the republic of letters, to 
heroically devote their lives and substance to the 
hopeless enterprise of maintaining a periodical 
dedicated to " polite literature." These old-time 
magazines have an antique atmosphere and ap- 
pearance when compared with those of the day. 
Before me is a bound volume of The New York 
Mirror of 1834, a weekly, and " devoted to liter- 
ature and the fine arts," its editors being George 

[240] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 



P. Morris, Theodore S. Fay and Nathaniel P. 
Willis, all distinguished writers in their genera- 
tion. The Mirror has eight quarto pages, no 
advertisements, and has songs with accompani- 
ments, or instrumental piano pieces, in each issue ; 
a few beautiful full-page steel plate engravings 
adorn the volume, and an excellent selection of 
prose and poetry appears in its pages. The prac- 
tical and commercial phases are not in evidence; 
politics receives little or no consideration, while 
fiction and a high class of articles predominate, 
with the travel letters of Fay and Willis as con- 
spicuous features. Though this old periodical 
has a somewhat tame and conservative spirit in 
comparison with our up-to-date and enterprising 
magazines, it commands respect for its calm and 
cultured management and for the air of refine- 
ment and amiable scholarship which pervade its 
columns, characteristics which, though they 
brought no reward of fortune to the proprietors, 
were yet an elevating influence in their day, and 
well appreciated, as this beautifully bound and 
carefully preserved volume attests. 

In the old days of the newspaper and magazine, 
talented writers sought editorial chairs that they 
might have widely-spread exemplars of their 

[241] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

ideas, and thus periodical literature was then of 
a more individualized, pronounced and forward- 
looking character than it is today ; for this reason 
the history of American magazines and news- 
papers furnishes many interesting names and 
careers of those who were prominent editors in 
the early years. It might be said again in pass- 
ing that these editorial influences were eminently 
characterized by the personal element; great 
journals like The New York Tribune, The Times 
and The Sun, spoke not as in the present day, 
impersonally, reflecting merely the ideas of the 
controlling 1 powers, but these newspapers in their 
creative editorials and entire management set 
forth the mind and the will of their respective 
editors — Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond 
and Charles A. Dana. The same may be said of 
the old magazines; the editors of them were 
generally men of independent convictions and of 
widely acknowledged literary abilities, for in 
those days it was scholarly and finished writing 
which was generally considered to be essential 
for the success of a periodical, and accordingly 
the securing of an editor known to be proficient 
as an author was deemed an attractive and pay- 
ing feature of the serial. On this account the 

f242] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

history of American periodicals embraces not a 
few men and women of the highest literary rep- 
utation who have served in editorial capacities, 
beginning with Benjamin Franklin, the father of 
the magazine in this country, and continuing 
down to about fifty years ago, when the present 
methods began to be prominently introduced. 

Thomas Paine, whose writings previous to and 
during the Revolution served immeasurably to 
promote the success of the Colonists, was first 
introduced to the people of this country as editor 
of The Pennsylvania Magazine, in which period- 
ical under the nom de plume of " Atlanticus " he 
won his first laurels in America. At the time of 
Paine's assuming this editorship, in February, 
1775, there appeared an article from his pen en- 
titled The Magazine in America, from which the 
following interesting paragraph is quoted: 

" It has always been the opinion of the learned and 
curious, that a magazine when properly conducted is the 
nursery of genius; and by constantly accumulating new 
matter, becomes a kind of market for wit and utility. 
The opportunity which it affords to men of ability to 
communicate their studies, kindles up a spirit of inven- 
tion and emulation. An unexercised genius soon con- 
tracts a kind of mossiness, which not only checks its 

[243] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

growth, but abates its natural vigor. Like an unten- 
anted house it falls into decay, and frequently ruins the 
possessor." 

Charles B. Brown, in his day a popular writer, 
was the first typical and distinctive American 
author to appear, and he is also notable for hav- 
ing been the first man of letters in this country 
to follow authorship as a profession and for a 
livelihood; he, too, served as an editor — first, in 
1801, of Conrad's Literary Magazine and Amer- 
ican Review, Philadelphia, and later of The 
Annual Register. Though all magazine enter- 
prises were then a forlorn hope, Brown was, so 
far as possible, successful, promoting the pros- 
perity of the periodicals which he edited; but his 
literary fame rests entirely upon his epochal 
books of fiction. 

The brilliant and eccentric genius of Edgar 
Allan Poe was also employed in magazine editor- 
ship, The Southern Literary Messenger, of Rich- 
mond, Virginia, having been his first experience 
in this line, but he was a passionate and somewhat 
dissipated person, and after quarreling with the 
owner of the periodical was compelled to resign; 
in 1837 he went to New York, where he was con- 
nected with the Quarterly Review of that city. 

[244] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

Remaining there for a year, he was then asso- 
ciated with Graham's Magazine, of Philadelphia, 
for a period of four years, a portion of the time 
serving as editor. Here he again had a disagree- 
ment with the publisher and sundered his rela- 
tions with the periodical. Poe cherished an am- 
bition to possess a magazine and to edit it accord- 
ing to his own ideals, and it is possible that, with 
his talents liberated from the embarrassing tute- 
lage under which he ever labored, his genius 
might have more widely and deeply developed, 
but with his erratic nature and convivial habits 
it is unlikely that he would have achieved success 
either as editor or proprietor. It would appear, 
however, that he has been a much slandered per- 
son, while the commendable phases of his life 
and character have been slighted; it should be 
said to his credit that he was an industrious and 
painstaking writer, thorough and conscientious 
from a literary standpoint in all that he com- 
mitted to print; during the fifteen years of his 
productive period he wrote voluminously at 
wretchedly inadequate rates, being ever harassed 
with poverty and anxiety, an invalid and beloved 
wife adding to the solicitude under which he 

[245] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

disadvantageous^ labored. Years ago Harper's 
Magazine published a fine description of Poe's 
personal appearance and of his mental character- 
istics, from the pen of a " Lady Love/' and it 
is here reproduced: 

" Mr. Poe was about five feet eight inches tall, and 
had dark, almost black hair, which he wore long and 
brushed back in student style over his ears. It was as 
fine as silk. His eyes were large and full, gray and 
piercing. He was then, I think, entirely clean-shaven. 
His nose was long and straight, and his features finely 
cut. The expression about his mouth was beautiful. 
He was pale, and had no color. His skin was of a clear, 
beautiful olive. He had a sad, melancholy look. He 
was very slender when I first knew him, but had a fine 
figure, an erect military carriage and a quick step. But 
it was his manner that most charmed. It was elegant. 
When he looked at you it seemed as if he could read your 
very thoughts. His voice was pleasant and musical, but 
not deep. 

" He always wore a black frock coat buttoned up, with 
a cadet or military collar, a low, turned-over shirt collar, 
and a black cravat tied in a loose knot. He did not fol- 
low the fashions, but had a style of his own. His was a 
loose way of dressing, as if he didn't care. You would 
know that he was very different from the ordinary run 
of young men. Affectionate! I should think he was; 
he was passionate in his love. 

f 246 1 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

" My intimacy with Mr. Poe isolated me a good deal. 
In fact my girl friends were many of them afraid of 
him, and forsook me on that account. I knew none of 
his male friends. He despised ignorant people, and 
didn't like trifling and small talk. He didn't like dark- 
skinned people. When he loved he loved desperately. 
Though tender and very affectionate, he had a quick, pas- 
sionate temper and was very jealous. His feelings were 
intense, and he had but little control of them. He was 
not well balanced; he had too much brain. He scoffed 
at everything sacred, and never went to church. If he 
had had religion to guide him he would have been a 
better man. He said often that there was a mystery hang- 
ing over him he never could fathom. He believed he was 
born to suffer, and this embittered his whole life." 

This is a remarkably clear pen-picture of a 
most interesting literary character — of a gifted, 
wayward and unfortunate child of genius; cold 
and indifferent must be that person who can read 
this intimate and pathetic summing up of his 
merits and demerits without a feeling of sym- 
pathy and regret. Poe's military air, which is 
mentioned, was no doubt derived from his brief 
experience as a cadet at West Point Military 
Academy. 

A well-nigh forgotten literary light and editor 
of the old days was a writer who bore the sound- 

[247] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

ing, oracular name of Orestes Augustus Brown- 
son, who, starting in life midst humble circum- 
stances and with a limited education, became 
through self-instruction a man of prodigious 
learning, acquired several languages and by dili- 
gent study made himself deeply read in many de- 
partments of human knowledge. Of a literary 
turn and enthusiastic disposition, he eagerly com- 
mitted to writing and to the press the results of 
his ever-enlarging studies and the ideas which he 
prolifically evolved from them, so that he left be- 
hind him at his death a great mass of profound 
and valuable writings having to do with religion, 
philosophy, science and many other topics; after 
having considered in his investigations all reli- 
gious systems and placed his various ideas in 
print, he finally adopted the Catholic church and 
its creed as the model for his faith and practice, 
and was thereafter actively devoted to that de- 
nomination. He was the founder of Brownson's 
Quarterly Review, Boston, which ran from 1838 
to 1843 ; soon after having embraced the Catholic 
religion, he revived this periodical in New York, 
and it became the most prominent organ of that 
church in the country. This was not the first 
field, however, of Brownson's editorial activity, 

[248] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

for in the earlier portion of his career, when he 
was a believer in Universalism, he had served 
as editor of two different periodicals devoted to 
the interests of that faith. He partook of that 
freedom of thought advocated and exercised by 
the Transcendentalists, and had been associated 
with Emerson and other prominent persons of 
that school of philosophy and religion, but the 
liberty of opinion which they assumed and 
moderately cultivated was abused by Brownson, 
who in the nineteen volumes of his works shows 
himself to have been wedded in a sort of intel- 
lectual bigamy to a variety of religious and philo- 
sophical beliefs, one after another, he himself 
admitting that he " had accepted and vindicated 
nearly every error into which the human race 
has ever fallen." 

As one reverts from the practical literary poli- 
cies of the day to the editors and writers of the 
years which we are considering, it is like visiting 
another land and another people, so different are 
the aims, and the methods employed. Those 
former days were notable in the literary sphere 
for sincerity, power and fecundity of thought, 
for an enthusiastic searching after ultimate 
truth, for a striving towards the realization of 

[249] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

ideals ; and not for pecuniary profit, but for the 
enjoyment of the high enterprise and the antici- 
pated gratification of the attainment. 

There were giants in those days — poets, 
preachers, essayists, philosophers, novelists — 
and as in the pages of their books we trace their 
mighty strides, we mourn for the absence of their 
progeny, for they left no heirs of their greatness. 
But the favorable conditions in the midst of which 
these thinkers developed have ceased to exist; 
there were then fewer distractions, less of urban 
population and of the commercial spirit; the 
weekly newspaper was the principal channel of 
information for the most of the people; the dis- 
semination of news and opinions was slow; hu- 
man life was unartificial and its interests were 
largely centered and engrossed in the little neigh- 
borhood communities, with their postoffices, stores 
and artisan shops — the people lived within them- 
selves and for the most part supplied their own 
wants; there were, therefore, opportunities to 
think, and w r here that exists — where there is 
room for thought — there will arise great think- 
ers. The advent of rapid printing presses, the 
employment of wood-pulp paper, cheap postage, 
the telegraph, telephone and other means of speedy 

[250] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

and general communication and distribution ; the 
wiping out of the small villages by the centralized 
activities of the cities; the introduction of the 
rural post routes by which all are able to have 
daily papers; amateur photography and the in- 
vention of photo-engraving, by which agencies 
illustrated magazines have been multiplied and 
brought within the means of and made convenient 
to all, building up great periodical publishing con- 
cerns — all this has conduced to a superficial and 
general enlightenment, but it has not fostered 
original and deep thinking, and without pro- 
found thought little of real and permanent value 
is achieved. Periodical literature has degen- 
erated to a commercial level; profiting by the 
great amount derived from advertisements, which 
depend, of course, upon the extent of the circula- 
tion, the popular magazines have use for only 
those writers who are competent to entertain the 
largest number of readers, which condition has 
had a discouraging effect upon the producers of 
a more thoughtful and permanent literature. 

Standing in the middle ground between the old- 
time and the modern magazine proprietor is the 
unique personality of Robert Bonner ; he was the 
first of that line of periodical magnates who by 

[2511 



American Magazines, Past and Present 



the adoption of bold and daring business methods 
achieve success. Born in Ireland in 1824 and 
coming to this country at the age of fifteen, he 
became an apprentice in the Hartford (Conn.) 
Courant printing office. He developed into an 
expert and rapid compositor, and coming to New 
York was employed by The Evening Mirror, 
making use of his leisure hours to write news 
letters to The Courant. Having accumulated a 
modest capital, he purchased in 1851 The Mer- 
chants Ledger, of New York, converted it into a 
literary weekly, and engaged Fanny Fern, a popu- 
lar writer of the day, to contribute to the period- 
ical at one hundred dollars a column, which was 
considered an enormous amount at that time for 
such work. Fanny Fern was the pen-name of 
Sara P. Willis, a sister of Nathaniel P. Willis; 
she married James Parton who, in his day, was 
a widely known author and whose biographies 
of noted men are still read and admired. Bonner 
renamed his weekly The New York Ledger, and 
through the liberal advertising he gave it and 
from the employment of the highest writing 
talent available, it acquired a vast circulation and 
made a fortune for its owner. His outlay for 
advertising frequently amounted to twenty-five 

F 252 ] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

thousand dollars a week, while Charles Dickens 
and other great literary men of the times were 
contributors ; he paid Henry Ward Beecher, then 
the most famous clergyman of the country, thirty 
thousand dollars for his novel, Norwood, which 
appeared serially and was widely read. In the 
meantime, however, Bonner allowed no adver- 
tisements to appear in The Ledger, the periodical 
criterion of the day being no advertisements and 
no illustrations. Longfellow was not too proud 
and conservative to sell his poems to this frankly 
confessed money-making magazine; three thou- 
sand dollars were paid him by Bonner for his 
poem, The Hanging of the Crane; but the bulk 
of the reading matter which appeared in " The 
Ledger " appealed to the less discriminating por- 
tion of the public. 

Bonner was fond of horses and spent as much 
as six hundred thousand dollars in the gratifica- 
tion of this hobby, purchasing the fastest trotters 
for fabulous prices, but never engaging in public 
races. This, of course, was an indirect method 
of advertising; the writer well remembers the 
astonishment which prevailed when the news was 
excitedly spread throughout the country that 
Bonner of The Ledger had bought " Dexter," a 

[253] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

trotting horse that held the world's record, pay- 
ing for him a great price, and to be used merely 
as a pleasure driving horse. It may be said that 
two incongruous episodes gave The Ledger and 
its owner their greatest renown — the securing 
of Beecher's Norwood, and the purchase of 
" Dexter/' Bonner was, however, an excellent 
and popular man, of an amiable and friendly 
disposition, a liberal contributor to philanthropic 
purposes and a faithful adherent of the church; 
altogether he was the most conspicuous, unique 
and successful periodical publisher of his genera- 
tion. 

To emphasize what has already been said: In 
recent years magazine publishing and editing has 
grown to be in many instances a purely commer- 
cial enterprise, with literary ideals forgotten in 
the rush for an enlarging circulation, though 
there are some exceptions. Beginning about the 
year 1870, advertisements began to appear pro- 
fusely in the magazines, and with the great 
profits thus accruing, the success of periodical 
publishing was assured. As can easily be under- 
stood, this policy necessitated a departure from 
the former ideals which had been maintained in 
editorial rooms, and required an adaptation to 

[254 1 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

the ideas and activities of the day, in order that 
the circulation might be increased and thus 
higher prices afforded for the display of adver- 
tisements. Hence, the demand that the editors 
of such magazines now make upon writers is for 
fiction that has striking episodes, strange and 
unheard-of situations, droll phraseology, bar- 
barian dialect — anything to attract and hold the 
attention of the masses and sell the periodical. 
iVs to material of rare and refined sentiment, or 
of a meditative, scholarly or historic character, 
it finds no market in the average magazine of 
today. Instead of the old-time editor, thought- 
ful, discriminating, wedded to the highest tradi- 
tions of literature, with lofty ethical standards, 
refusing in agreement with the author, to have 
names appended to articles, so that merit and 
only merit might sway in them ; — in place of 
this we have now a class of men making up the 
selections for many of our periodicals who are 
in close touch with the circulation manager and 
the news-stand, and who derive their cues from 
those practical sources. Guided by this policy 
the American magazine has developed to aston- 
ishing material success and arrived at propor- 
tions unequaled by any other nation on the globe, 

17 [ 255 ] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

for practically every family in this country is a 
subscriber to one or more monthlies or weeklies, 
and frequently to half a dozen. The older and 
conservative periodicals, threatened with extinc- 
tion by the rush for the ephemeral and bizarre, 
are gradually succumbing to the popular demand. 
These conditions have exercised, of course, a 
deleterious effect upon the writer fraternity, who, 
though certain of them have been pecuniarily 
successful beyond anything in the history of 
authorship, have been compelled to lower their 
standards, or to curb their aspirations for the 
attainment of the higher planes of literary 
achievement. Thus, there is now little oppor- 
tunity as in former times for the independent 
and conscientious writer to rise into honorable 
distinction, for the great periodicals either have 
under contract or ready to respond to their calls, 
a group of writers who are experts in just the 
line of material which they employ. It is not 
uncommon for several periodicals to be owned 
and managed by one publishing concern, and in 
such cases it is the fashion to employ a staff of 
adept fiction writers on weekly wages, who fur- 
nish the stories used by the various magazines 
issued by the firm. The tendency to specializa- 

t 256 ] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

lion which is operative in every field of human 
activity has manifested itself in the literary 
sphere, so that today an editor instead of depend- 
ing upon unsolicited material sent in by unknown 
writers, delegates men of his staff, or other per- 
sons whom he deems competent, to write the fic- 
tion or prepare the article that he wishes ; in fact, 
editors of magazines not infrequently block out 
for authors the treatment of the material they 
desire, even providing for story writers the plots 
of the yarns they are to build around them. It 
will be apparent from all this that the unknown 
and unfledged writer stands but little chance of 
gaining an acceptance from magazines of the 
character which we have been discussing. 

But there is a brighter side to periodical litera- 
ture in the United States; so far we have been 
dealing with the popular prints, those which sell 
ic the hurrying, undiscriminating portion of the 
people, to those who have not the inclination or 
even the time to peruse thoughtful and instructive 
writings ; but it should be remembered that there 
are a great many persons to whom the worthier 
type of magazine would appeal, were publishers 
willing to produce and authors to write them for 
the comparatively small remuneration which they 

[257] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 

would achieve. This field, however, is being 
widely cultivated today, more than ever since the 
coming in of the floods of popular periodicals, 
by a host of religious, household, historical, fra- 
ternal, reform and educational magazines, many 
of which have very large circulations, are ably 
edited and attractively printed and illustrated, 
and though never seen on news-stands nor 
hawked on trains, are silently performing a great 
and cultural work. In the meantime the multi- 
plying of a class of magazines aiming at the 
opposite effect — something to startle and dazzle 
— is a process of grave digging preparatory to 
death by starvation, scores of them having ceased 
to exist within the past few years, and the end 
is not yet. The great newspapers, particularly 
the Sunday editions, are, with their magazine 
features, rivaling and even distancing many of 
them in the race for popularity. 

The eclipse of the old-time dignified magazine 
has been accompanied with the failing renown of 
the author; — no longer does he command the 
veneration of the people; — thousands are writ- 
ing but generally without any distinctive per- 
sonality ; the* output lacks individuality, sincerity, 
high purpose and ethical, cultural atmosphere ; it 

[258] 



American Magazines, Past and Present 



is common, ordinary, wanting deep and lasting 
merit, devoid of appeal to the best sentiments of 
the people, without which it is destined to go into 
the limbo of ephemeral literature. But in the 
decades to come there will perchance yet live 
some story, poem or article that a sincere and 
worthy soul has committed to writing and which 
the editor of some obscure periodical has appre- 
ciated and printed, which will shine on and on 
into the future, an inspiration to the reader and 
a lasting honor to the author. 



r 259 1 



THE BURDEN OF LIBERTY 



Oh Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream, 
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, 
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap, — 

* * * A bearded man, 
Armed to the teeth art thou; one mailed hand 
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword ; thy brow, 
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred 
With tokens of old wars ; thy massive limbs 
Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched 
H,is bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee ; 
They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven. 
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep. 
And his swart armourers, by a thousand fires, 
Have forged thy chain ; yet, while he deems thee bound, 
The links are shivered, and the prison walls 
Fall outward ; terribly thou springest forth, 
As springs the flame above a burning pile, 
And shoutest to the nations, who return 
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. 

— Bryant. 

The assumption of the principle of political 
liberty is the taking of a fearful responsibility, 
whether individually or collectively — in either 
case it concerns the issue of national life or death. 

T 260 ] 



The Burden of Liberty 



This is a fact which is very imperfectly realized, 
the prevailing idea being that freedom is merely 
a loosening of restraint and an indulgence in 
pleasurable diversions and occupations; this is 
but a part, and the lesser part of the condition, 
the other being eternal vigilance and a ceaseless 
battle with the sleepless enemies of liberty. From 
the beginning of history this contention has been 
fiercely waged and it is still continuing with un- 
abated fury, a terrible demonstration having been 
in the recent world war, and it will proceed, 
though not let us hope with the shedding of blood ; 
for there can be no peace between liberty and 
oppression — one or the other must ultimately 
perish in the strife. 

The whole creation partakes of the unappeas- 
able conflict — the mineral elements are perpetu- 
ally fighting to develop themselves in the midst of 
determined oppositions, giving humanity in- 
stances of their power in flood, hurricane, volcano 
and earthquake; every vegetable growth has its 
obstacles, its enemies which it must overcome or 
perish ; all animal existence is the prey of destruc- 
tive beasts and appropriate vermin — in short, 
the liberty of all things is disputed and hedged 
in so that nothing can succeed or even continue 

[261] 



The Burden of Liberty 



except by persistent endeavor. For the virus of 
human depravity, with a spirit of arrogance and 
rebellion, has been communicated as a contagion 
to the earth which we inhabit and it has become 
a sad commentary on the contentions which rack 
the life and spirit of humanity. 

Liberty in the perfection of her virgin grace 
and beauty, will not come to us ; we must come to 
Liberty, and her home is ever shifting to pin- 
nacles of a higher and higher trail, toilsome and 
full of peril, which heroes only are likely to fol- 
low; but it is a kind of mountain climbing that 
incorporates health into a nation and eliminates 
the political disease germs of cowardice and 
indifference. 

Another consideration concerning liberty 
which is not well appreciated is, that it is really 
of an ethical or religious character, inasmuch as 
it is impossible of adequate attainment without 
the exercise on the part of the people of Christian 
faith and precepts. The Bible is the charter of 
our freedom — upon it the fathers of the nation 
built its foundations, and out of it the super- 
structure, all that is high and enduring, must be 
fashioned. It was with deprivation of their 
liberty and to be given into the control of their 

[262] 



The Burden of Liberty 



enemies that the ancient Israelites were threat- 
ened if they disobeyed the law of God, an experi- 
ence which invariably and repeatedly they were 
condemned to suffer ; and this warning is for the 
benefit of the present generation of the world, 
as much as for those of a remote century of the 
past. There is, therefore, a great burden of ac- 
countableness imposed upon any people who 
propose to realize or maintain the principle of 
liberty, but it is one which like the yoke and bur- 
den of the Founder of Christianity, is easily 
borne if assumed in a right spirit. 

Of the destiny of liberty, or rather of liberty 
lands, there is one unvarying condition which 
determines what it shall be — that ancient rock 
upon which the Israelitish nation was ruined — 
obedience to divine law, leading to prosperity 
and freedom; or disobedience, followed by mis- 
fortune and political dependence. The mere 
possession by a people of nominal liberty, not hav- 
ing the essence of it, is no guarantee of success 
and permanence, for injustice and tyranny may 
flourish in it, while evil influences may easily em- 
ploy the very vehicle of freedom with which to 
oppress the people. 

[263] 



The Burden of Liberty 



True liberty is a heavenly, precious possession, 
and as such is not to be cheaply obtained ;• — while 
it is to be had without money and without price, 
it can only be secured by the extravagant ex- 
penditure by both individual and nation of fealty 
to God, study of social and political problems, 
earnest community service, and cheerful, never- 
ending sacrifice of selfhood to the highest public 
interests. 



f264| 



THE ULTIMATE AIM OF HISTORY 



It is the purpose of this paper to inquire as to 
what is the essential and final goal of history ; to 
determine, if possible, the secret object which the 
centuries of the past have held, with their volu- 
minous and diversified chronicles. For it should 
be considered that history of itself has no aim, 
that it is but a blind and irresponsible thing, a 
setting forth of facts devoid of the gloss of lit- 
erature, neglectful of the theories of philosophy 
and scornful of the spirit of prophecy. But, as 
the world of nature to only the unattentive and 
materially minded is without design and har- 
mony, so there is yet clearly discerned by the 
thoughtful and devout that a superintending 
divine agency also governs the making of uni- 
versal history, directing the paths of nations and 
determining their destinies. 

The further the race progresses the larger, 
more detailed, accurate and enlightened becomes 
its contributions to history, and the easier be- 
comes the task of arriving at an intelligent 
opinion as to what this stupendous drama being 

[265] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

played on the world stage shall have for its end- 
ing. In the most ancient days there were no 
materials of history with which to learn of future 
prospects, except those consisting of brute power 
and barbaric pride, but in this advanced genera- 
tion when the a sights " on the historical compass 
have become more widely set apart, it is an at- 
tractive and profitable employment to endeavor 
to trace out from the historical landmarks the in- 
heritance the world offers its future inhabitants. 
To the real student this prophetic phase of the 
investigation must forcibly appeal, for it is hardly 
possible for one deeply interested in a subject to 
remain satisfied until he shall have viewed it in 
every light and turned upon it the illuminating 
rays of philosophy and religion. 

Many readers of history are interested exclu- 
sively in some of its minor fields to the neglect 
of that high and comprehensive view which we 
are considering. Thus, memoirs of local signifi- 
cance only, bound the historic interest of many 
persons. Others are able to relish the portrayal 
of the past in no other guise than that of a strik- 
ing and dramatic personage and demand of 
authors that they inject into their works life, 
movement and vigor, a requirement which has 

[ 266 ] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

been responded to in the historical novel, in which 
uninviting annals have been embellished and 
modernized in a manner to attract and hold the 
popular attention. There are still other groups 
of investigators who are specialists, taking up 
only those lines which relate to their particular 
tastes or callings, which studies while instructive 
and useful may by the holding before the atten- 
tion of subordinate parts, obscure the grand out- 
look over the past in its entirety and prevent a 
just understanding of the essential trend of 
events universally considered. 

It will be convenient to discuss the topic under 
the three following heads: First, The existence 
of a world-social development ever proceeding. 
Second, Ethical progression. Third, Evidences 
of a universal dominion of truth, justice and 
righteousness yet to be established. 

Social Progression 

To the superficial reader the history of his own 
country will appear an enigma of conditions and 
events, defying his attempts to trace the final plan 
and purpose of it all, while in the vast field of 
universal history he finds himself completely lost 
in the bewildering confusion of the rise and fall 

[267] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

of nations, the changing peoples, policies and 
religions of those world powers ever mounting 
to the ruined places of humiliated empires, and 
the never-ending amalgamations of races and 
languages to become influential in the achieve- 
ments of the world. Attentive consideration, 
however, will convince him that from the dawn 
of history there has been a line of advancement, 
though the path must frequently be traced as it 
loops back to avoid perhaps some obstacle which 
we have not yet the means to discover. 

Thus, history in its world-wide aspect, reach- 
ing from the earliest recorded times to the pres- 
ent, is at first view a pathless chaos of events, 
disconnected, unrelated, and following one after 
the other as in the sightless lottery of chance. 
But men of thought have discovered in this maze 
of local, national and international chronicles, 
coherent orders of progression and have made 
worthy and useful endeavors to lead tributary 
currents of history into one great river of ad- 
vancement, seeking thus to unify and render 
intelligible the events of all times and peoples. 
In studies of this character the works of Hegel, 
Guizot, Herder, Mulford, Draper and Kidd 
among others are prominent as sustaining various 

[268] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

phases of the developmental theory of world 
progress. 

Since the seventeenth century when Bacon and 
Descartes promulgated the doctrine of an in- 
herent progressive spirit in the race, the idea has 
found more and more adherents until it has 
become a generally received article of historic 
faith. Guizot subscribes to it in the following 
words : 

" For my part, I feel assured that a general civiliza- 
tion pervades the human race ; that at every epoch it aug- 
ments ; and that there, consequently, is a universal history 
of civilization to be written. Nor have I any hesitation 
in asserting that this history is the most noble, the most 
interesting of any, and that it comprehends every other." 

Elisha Mulford, an American philosophical 
writer of a high order, whom this nation might 
well more generally study, has this to say : 

" The nation no more exists complete in a single period 
of time than does the race; it is not a momentary exist- 
ence, as if defined in some circumstance. It is not com- 
posed of its present occupants alone, but it embraces 
those who are, and have been, and shall be. There is in 
it the continuity of the generations, it reaches backward 
to the fathers and onward to the children, and its rela- 
tion is manifest in its reverence for the one and its hope 
for the other. * * * The nation has never existed 

[269] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

wihich placed a definite termination to its existence — 
a period when its order was to expire and the obligation 
to its law to cease. * * * The best attainments pass 
slowly from their germ to their perfectness, as in the 
growth of language and the law, the arts and the litera- 
ture of a people. Chaucer and Spencer, through intervals 
of slow advance, precede Shakespeare, as Giotto and 
Perugino lead the way to Michael Angelo and Raphael. 
* * * In the fruition of the nation there is the work 
of the generations, and even in the moments of its exist- 
ence the expression of their spirit, the blending of the 
strength of youth, the resolve of manhood, and the experi- 
ence of the age — the hope and the aspiration of the one, 
the wisdom and repose of the other." 

The German author, Herder, a most eloquent 
advocate of the idea which is being considered 
and a man who accomplished more, perhaps, than 
any other in popularizing it, thus expresses his 
belief : 

" The philosophy of history is the true history of man- 
kind, without which all the outward occurrences of this 
world are but clouds or revolting deformities. It is a 
melancholy prospect to behold nothing in the revolutions 
of our earth but wreck after wreck, eternal beginnings 
without end, changes of circumstances without any fixed 
purpose. The chain of improvement alone forms a whole 
of these ruins, in which human figures indeed vanish, 
but the spirit of mankind lives and acts immortally." 

[270] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

Silent, invisible, sleepless, there exists in the 
multitudinous aspects of history, ancient and 
modern, a controlling spirit of world progress, 
ever shaping and manipulating events for the 
bringing in of a better day of human advance- 
ment and happiness. Though the movement may 
seem to halt or tarry, or even to experience 
eclipse, as in the Dark Ages, the divine salutary 
determination is but preparing unseen the ma- 
terials for an illumination which shall dispel the 
darkness and bring in an era of light of which 
the world before has had no conception. This 
renaissance cannot be confined to limits of time, 
for it belongs to the past, present and future 
and consists of a perpetual resurrection from the 
dead of angelic elements now sleeping in the 
hidden cells of the world-soul. 

In our own day, while contending with gigantic 
powers of evil and oppression, it is not difficult 
to discern the agency of the world-spirit working 
for the amelioration of labor, the prevention of 
disease, the relief of poverty, the reformation of 
the vicious, the prohibition of the liquor traffic, 
the prevention of vice, the inhibition of cruelty 
to animals, the protection of children from im- 
moral and physically injurious conditions and the 

18 [ 271 ] 



•-/* 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

extending to larger and larger proportions of the 
people, irrespective of financial abilities, of the 
privileges, luxuries and enjoyments of life. 

We are living in a day when the foundations 
of ecclesiastical, political, social and industrial 
beliefs and usages are breaking up and we are 
approaching the threshold of a new and better 
order of control and experience. We are ascend- 
ing the mountain of progress and are disengag- 
ing ourselves of those burdens which in lower 
places were appropriate and useful and are adopt- 
ing that equipment better suited for the higher 
altitude and the purer air. It is encouraging to 
think that our generation is living in the flood 
tide of progress and that we are in the direct 
line of history's aim for the development of man- 
kind in all that is desirable and worthy. It is 
pleasing to meditate that conditions may not be 
far from us under which men will rival in in- 
telligence, culture and general ability the Athe- 
nians of Pericles' day, when, through favorable 
civic regulations, the sordid struggle for a liveli- 
hood and a competency was largely remitted and 
leisure and opportunities afforded for enjoyment 
and the development of the heart and mind. 

[272 1 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

Yes, the spirit of history is a living, immortal 
excellency, progressive, rising ever to higher 
things on unwearied pinions. Its breath is 
idealism and it soars above the din and dust of 
commerce and manufacture and dreams forever 
of Utopian days when mind shall claim the as- 
cendency, when pure and elevated and disinter- 
ested enjoyments shall prevail and when strong 
and ambitious men shall vie with each other in 
the enterprises which have to do with the uplift 
and happiness of the people. I can conceive of 
that divine, patient, holy spirit looking down with 
undissembled grief upon the race bowed down 
in ignoble servitude, worshiping the god of gain 
and immolating on its altar the most precious and 
darling possessions which the Creator has be- 
stowed upon us: even the heritage of our unde- 
veloped souls and sentiments. As the Orientals 
destroy their children in the blind hope of 
propitiating their gods, so do we sacrifice under 
the rude trucks of practical affairs the infantile 
faculties which have been committed to us to love, 
foster and protect. 

But throughout all the great tomes of history 
we may always detect the noble, benignant pres- 
ence of its presiding genius and can fancy that 

1 273] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

we hear the rustle of its wings as it flies down 
the dread centuries that have gone. We may 
trace its flight through the ruined epochs of the 
past, but we can more profitably search for it 
living and serene in the present or on the sun- 
kissed mountains of a better dawn, where it ever 
dwells for the hope and encouragement of men. 

Ethical Progression 

Taking up now the second division of our sub- 
ject which relates to its ethical aspect, it should 
be said that this is no departure from the course 
of development which has been pursued, but that 
it is an evolvement from what has gone before; 
or rather an essential part of all true progress. 
Thus, following the ultimate aim of history, it 
is found that it is directed not only along the line 
of social development but on the upward trend 
of public and private ethical improvement. 

At the outset it is pertinent to introduce a pro- 
found and highly interesting question, viz. : To 
which in the development of society is the greater 
influence to be attributed; to individual or col- 
lective improvement? There are those who 
maintain that the elevation of men in the mass 
in all their relations depends alone upon the ex- 

F274] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

cellence of character in the component units, 
while others argue that society in its written and 
unwritten laws compels or persuades the indi- 
vidual to live up to the standards proclaimed by 
the public voice. There could hardly be pro- 
pounded a more weighty and vital question. Per- 
haps, however, Guizot's solution, in which a 
reciprocal action is pointed out, is the best. He 
says: 

" Hence we may affirm that it is the intuitive belief of 
man, that these two elements (social and individual) of 
civilization are intimately connected and that they recipro- 
cally produce one another. If we examine the history 
of the world we shall have the same result. We shall 
find that every expansion of human intelligence has 
proved of advantage to society; and that all the great 
advances in the social condition have turned to the profit 
of humanity. One or the other of these facts may pre- 
dominate, may shine forth with greater splendor for a 
season and impress upon the movement its own particu- 
lar character, * * * but when we look closely we 
easily recognize the link by which they are connected." 

This opinion is not only mentally satisfying, 
commending itself to sound judgment and a sense 
of the fitness of things, but it provides a key by 
which many doors in the house of history may 

[275] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

be unlocked. Moreover, it is useful in impress- 
ing both upon those engaged in public and private 
capacities that we cannot shirk responsibility and 
toss it like a shuttle-cock this way and the other, 
but that upon each rests inevitably the burden of 
personal and public obligation. 

To the reader of universal history there is dis- 
closed an ethical hunger which from earliest 
times has urged on the race to high endeavors 
with as much zeal as it has followed the chase 
for means to gratify its physical needs. In the 
soul of man there has always existed a blind, 
struggling, unappeasable revolt against the lower 
nature within and the unyielding conservatism 
without, striving up to the realization of higher 
ideals. It constitutes a never-ending battle com- 
pared to which in both volume and results all 
the wars of the world are insignificant : a sublime 
belligerency involving every nation in history and 
every individual comprising them. Each genera- 
tion, fighting hard, has won a little more of the 
enemy's territory, or at least has treasured up 
some of that which was committed to it, striving 
in the narrow field of its vision for what it seemed 
at that present most in need of; ever moving 
forward, though gaining but little, but leaving 

[276] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

for the far future to discern the way of its lead- 
ing by the divine agency into the crowning glories 
of coming days. 

The books of history open with unqualified 
authority sitting in the place of power, clothed 
with the garment of tyranny and oppression, 
lording it over the mind, body and estate of the 
wretches beneath. They must live the life of 
brutes, think as the throne thinks, fight and die 
at its behest. But dwelling in the souls of those 
serfs and slaves was the unquenchable spark of 
freedom's fire, and handed down, it in after 
years grew visible, mounted up higher and higher 
until in our times it has grown to be a world con- 
flagration. Even the World War had for its 
purpose on the part of the Allies the humiliation 
of the pride and arbitrary power of the German 
government. Not only has the despotism of 
rulers been for the most part abolished and equal 
rights for the individual obtained, but the soul 
of man, liberated from the shackles which con- 
fined it, has revealed undiscovered faculties for 
disinterested service, constituting our times the 
most distinguished in history for humanitarian 
impulses. 

[ 277 ] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

The aim of the spirit of modern history has 
been to emancipate the individual from tyran- 
nical government, to liberate the mind and soul 
from the present and its material rewards and 
fascinations and to project the governing influ- 
ences of the thinking principle into the future. 
The god that the ancients worshiped, their chief 
deity, was the present, upon the altar of which 
were heaped all the treasures of mind, body and 
spirit. They lived for the present and they died 
for it. No deep, controlling ethical considera- 
tion influenced their lives; their motives in all 
things were frankly selfish and utilitarian. It is 
readily to be seen what vain and reactionary con- 
ditions of society so narrow a view of life would 
produce. Though splendid civilizations of 
ancient times challenge our admiration as we 
consider their glorious achievements, they are 
for the most part distinctions upon which is 
draped the pall of death, in that they embody 
practically nothing essential to the best estate of 
man. Not till Calvary's day is reached do we 
find the aim of history, w T hich previous to that 
time had pointed to no high and universally ab- 
sorbing ideal, looking steadily into the future. 
Here ethics took a new birth, and no longer to 

[278] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

be governed by the bargaining spirit of contem- 
poraneous affairs, faced to the future as the 
destination of hope and the ultimate reward of 
virtue. On the foundation of this simple but 
profound and infinitely influential conception 
rises the living, progressive and immortal world- 
spirit of the twentieth century. The respect for 
and confidence in the gifts of the future have 
modified and purified the present; it has intro- 
duced into art, science and literature, and into 
social, political and practical affairs, ethical 
standards of beauty, liberty, truth and justice 
which rule our spirits, not from the burial urns 
of the dead past, but from the living, immortal 
hope of the future. For history is but the trellis 
upon which the world-spirit may train up the 
branches from the root of Christian ethics and 
faith to blossom and to fill the earth with fra- 
grance. Garnish the dead wood-work however 
we may, all that the people will care for will be 
the beautiful foliage and flowers that hide it, and 
of these they will make garlands to cherish and 
to hand down to their children and children's 
children, while the handiwork of the craftsmen 
will presently fall to the ground to rot into the 
dust. 

[ 279 ] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

Triumph of Righteousness 

The path to our third division is easy and nat- 
ural, for ethical improvement being an inherent 
impulse, the aim of history is seen to embrace 
the world in a design to achieve for it a universal 
and inconceivably high development. When one 
meditates upon the number and diversity of in- 
ternational associations devoted to the advance- 
ment of religion, social reform, science, labor, 
commerce, and other departments of thought and 
endeavor, the conclusion is unavoidable that the 
world is more and more recognizing its unity 
and unconsciously preparing for an era of uni- 
versal brotherhood and the abolition of war. 
Even on the battlefield are found at work inter- 
national angels of mercy. Missions are flourish- 
ing and multiplying as never before, the curse 
of strong drink is fast disappearing from the 
world, civic corruption has been for the greater 
part driven from the land while religion is rid- 
ding herself of dead forms and coming into the 
possession of the primitive things of her birth- 
right. 

[280] 



The Ultimate Aim of History 

Surely, the aim of history can be none other 
than to ultimately record that infidelity, despair 
and war have fled the earth and that faith, hope 
and charity have come to the perfecting of the 
world. 

THE END 



F281 1 



